Studies on effect of CuO addition on mechanical properties and in vitro cytocompatibility in 1393 bioactive glass scaffold

Copper doped bioactive glasses have been reported as the potential biomaterial for diseased or damaged bone repair and act as stimulants to new bones formation. In the present manuscript, we have synthesized 1393 derived glass based scaffold with the general formula of (54.6 − X)SiO₂·6Na₂O·7.9 K₂O·7.7 MgO·22 CaO·1.74 P₂O₅·XCuO (all are in mole%; where X = 0,1,2,3) through traditional melt-quench route and the samples were designated as 1393, 1393-1Cu, 1393-2Cu and 1393-3Cu respectively. Polymer foam with interconnected pores has been used on later stage to prepare porous (porosity > 50%) bioactive scaffolds. The addition of CuO in glass scaffolds was to ensure its cytocompatibility, ability to enhance cell proliferation and improvements in mechanical properties. Increasing trend of CuO in the 1393 glass scaffold has resulted in increasing compressive and flexural strength and elastic modulus of the scaffolds. In-vitro cellular growth inhibition and cell viability assay of CuO incorporated 1393 glass scaffolds demonstrated that it did not inhibit proliferation and viability of human squamous carcinoma cell (SCC-25) at low materials concentration. The materials caused moderate level of apoptosis at higher concentrations and were also tolerated by human RBC as studied by hemolytic assay. The results indicated that CuO incorporated 1393 scaffolds could be a potential biomaterial for neobone tissue engineering application.