Constructure and Feasibility of Micron Sized Fe3O4/PCL Biocomposite Scaffolds to Guide Magnetic Drug Delivery

Adjuvant chemotherapy is a critical regime in cancer treatment. The Magnetic Targeted Drug Delivery System (MTDDS) can selectively aggregate chemotherapy agents at the target areas, which has attracted high attention due to its safety, high efficiency, and minimal side effects to the human body. It would be ideal to establish a tissue engineering scaffold that can not only reconstruct the defect from the surgical tumor removal, but also serve as a magnetic station to attract MTDDS to the local site to enhance the targeted drug delivery. The current study constructed polycaprolactone magnetic tissue engineering scaffolds with various micrometer-sized magnets. The degradation properties of the scaffolds were assessed in simulated body fluid (SBF), and primary mouse bone marrow stromal cells were used to evaluate the biocompatibility of the scaffolds to osteoblast differentiations. The scaffolds were further examined by implantation to an air pouch model on the back of BALB/c mice. The intro-peritoneal injected fluorescence-magnetic particles were enriched on the implanted magnetic scaffold, indicating that the magnetic scaffold can effectively attract magnetic substances. The hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining and the real time PCR results showed that the prepared magnetic tissue engineering scaffolds have good biocompatibility without cytotoxicity.