Engineering Three-Dimensional-Printed Bioactive Polylactic Acid Alginate Composite Scaffolds with Antibacterial and In Vivo Osteoinductive Capacity.

Although fused deposition modeling (FDM) has made it possible to create reproducible three-dimensional poly(lactic acid) (PLA) scaffolds, their efficacy for tissue engineering applications is limited by their lack of osteoinductive properties and antibacterial functions. Building on the success of the FDM constructs capable of supporting bone regeneration, we report here on the development of PLA scaffolds infused with sodium alginate cross-linked with both calcium and zinc divalent cations. Zn cations were used to confer antibacterial and osteoinductive properties to enhance the performance of nontoxic PLA-alginate.