Specific objective: Guided tissue regeneration (GTR) aims to regenerate the lost attachment apparatus caused by periodontal disease through the use of a barrier membrane. For the GTR procedures to be successful, barrier membranes are required to be present at the surgical site for an extended period of time (weeks to months). Synthetic membranes have the advantage of prolonged presence in a wound site; however, they do not actively contribute to wound healing. Biologic membranes are recognized by the host tissue and participate in wound healing but have the disadvantage of early resorption. Therefore, the goal of this study is to create and characterize a hybrid barrier membrane that contains biologically active fibrin matrix within a synthetic polymeric electrospun scaffold.
Method: Fibrin matrices and fibrin-incorporated electrospun scaffold were created from fresh frozen plasma at three different centrifugation conditions 400g for 12 minutes, 1450g for 15 minutes and 3000g for 60 minutes. Following centrifugation, half of the membranes were crosslinked with 1% genipin. Biological stability of these scaffolds was evaluated by resistance to trypsin while their mechanical properties were characterized by MTS Bionix Uniaxial Tensile Testing System. Continuous data was analyzed by ANOVA to detect differences between groups (p=0.05).
Results: The addition of an electrospun scaffold to the fibrin matrix led to improvements in the mechanical properties as evidenced by an increase in the modulus (p<0.0001), strain at break (p<0.0001) and energy to break (p<0.0001). The effect of crosslinking was marginal but not statistically significant to the mechanical properties of fibrin matrices or the fibrin incorporated scaffold. However, crosslinking did significantly increase resistance against enzymatic degradation by trypsin (p<0.0001). Lastly, centrifugation speeds at 400g and 1450g showed similar mechanical properties and biologic stability; meanwhile 3000g negatively impacted the properties of the scaffold.
Conclusion: Fibrin-incorporated electronspun scaffold exhibits enhanced mechanical and biologic stability compared to fibrin matrices alone. Moreover, crosslinking improves the biologic stability of the novel biomaterial. All these characteristics of the fibrin-incorporated matrix make this membrane a potentially more ideal barrier for GTR procedures to enhance periodontal wound healing.