Malays. Appl. Biol. (2017) 46(4): 217–224
BIODEGRADABILITY AND CELLULAR COMPATIBILITY OF
POLY(3-HYDROXYBUTYRATE-co-4-HYDROXYBUTYRATE)
VIA SUBCUTANEOUS IMPLANTATION IN RAT MODEL
SEVAKUMARAN VIGNESWARI1,2 and AL-ASHRAF ABDULLAH AMIRUL1,3*
1School of Fundamental Science, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu,
21030 Kuala Nerus, Terengganu, Malaysia
2Malaysian Institute of Pharmaceuticals and Nutraceuticals,
11700 Gelugor, Penang, Malaysia
3School of Biological Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia,
11800 Minden, Penang, Malaysia
*Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Accepted 29 November 2017, Published online 31 December 2017
ABSTRACT
The copolymer P(3HB-co-4HB) is a member of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) exhibiting favorable mechanical properties and biocompatibility and are widely studied as absorbable biomaterial. In this study, copolymer P(3HB-co-4HB) scaffolds with two molar fractions (50mol% and 82 mol%) were implanted in Sprague Dawley rats for four and eight weeks to evaluate the cellular compatibility and rate of degradation. Surface modification was carried out on copolymer P(3HB-co-50mol%4HB) to fabricate nanofibrous scaffolds. At week 4 of implantation, nanofibrous P(3HB-co-50mol%4HB) showed highest degradation of 36% as compared to copolymer of 50 and 82 mol%. Similarly, at week 8, the highest degradation of 76 wt% was achieved with nanofibrous P(3HB-co-50mol%4HB). Based on estimated time of degradation, 11 weeks was needed for complete degradation when using nanofibrous P(3HB-co-50mol%4HB). The complete degradation duration of 17 weeks could be observed with P(3HB-co-50mol%4HB). As accelerated biodegradable polymeric biomaterials are preferred candidates for developing as biomaterial in biomedical applications, nanofibrous P(3HB-co-50mol%4HB) is favoured as potential candidate for biomaterial. The histological observations also indicate that all the scaffolds elicited mild tissue response and there were no acute inflammatory marker and fibrous encapsulation present in all the implanted scaffolds.
Key words: Sub-cutaneous biodegradation, P(3HB-co-4HB), scaffolds, nanofibrous, cellular compatibility
