Impact of oxygen-calcium-generating and bone morphogenetic protein-2 nanoparticles on survival and differentiation of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells in the 3D bio-printed scaffold

Although stem cell therapy is a major area of interest in tissue engineering, providing proper oxygen tension, good viability, and cell differentiation remain challenges in tissue-engineered scaffolds. In this study, an osteogenic scaffold was fabricated using the 3D bio-printing technique. The bio-ink contained alginate hydrogel, encapsulated human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hBM-MSCs), calcium peroxide nanoparticles (CPO NPs) as an oxygen generating biomaterial, and bone morphogenic protein-2 nanoparticles (BMP2 NPs) as an osteoinductive growth factor. CPO NPs were synthesized with the hydrolysis–precipitation method, and their concentrations in the bio-ink were optimized. Scaffolds containing CPO 3% (w/w) were preferred, because they generated sufficient oxygen gas for 20 days, increased mechanical strength after 20 days, and had sufficient stability. The CPO NPs effect on the viability of embedded hBM-MSCs under hypoxic conditions was analyzed. Live/Dead staining results represented a 22% improvement in CPO 3% scaffold viability on day 7. Therefore, CPO NPs constituted a promising survival factor. BMP2 NPs were prepared with the double emulsification technique. The incorporation of both BMP2 and CPO NPs resulted in the upregulation of Runt-related transcription factor 2, Collagen type I alpha 1, and the osteocalcin genes compared to internal references in osteogenic media. Overall, the proposed 3D bio-printed osteogenic scaffold in this study has moved scientific research one step forward toward successful stem cell therapy and helped improve host tissue healing by biological activity enhancement, especially for low oxygen pressure tissues.