Antibacterial bionanocomposite hydrogel based on hydroxyethyl cellulose, poly(vinyl alcohol), and montmorillonite clay as a scaffold for bone tissue engineering application.

It is well-documented that tissue engineering (TE) has been established as a powerful alternative for treatment of damaged and failed tissues/organs. Therefore, a novel bionanocomposite hydrogel was synthesized based on hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC), poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), and montmorillonite (MMT) clay as a scaffold for bone TE application. For this, HEC and PVA were functionalized with maleic anhydride (MA) to afford HEC-MA and PVA-MA macromonomers. Clay was modified by a methacrylate-end capped silane coupling agent, and then a mixture of HEC-MA, PVA-MA, modified MMT, and N,N´-dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate (DMAEMA) monomer was copolymerized in the presence of a crosslinker via a free radical copolymerization approach to afford a bionanocomposite hydrogel (HEC/PVA-cl-PDMAEMA/MMT). The developed scaffold was loaded with ciprofloxacin (Cip) as an antibiotic drug, and its antibacterial property was investigated by agar well-diffusion method against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. The scaffold showed proper drug loading capacity (4.22%), and pH-responsiveness drug release profile. Hemocompatibility assay exhibited that the scaffold had a hemolysis value less than 5% even at high concentration, which is slightly hemolytic as international standards. As proliferation experiment results by MTT-assay, the scaffold improved attachment, growth and proliferation of human osteoblast-like cells than control group, which qualified it for bone TE.