Design, synthesis & evaluation of carbon quantum dot-polymer nanocomposites for cardiovascular tissue engineering applications

Abstract

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) with escalating death rates pose one of the greatest threats to global health and well-being. Thus, developing effective interventions to combat CVD are of critical importance. 3D printing fabrication of engineered cardiovascular constructs with complex, hierarchical structures is capable of producing personalized structures. The current material science advancement has drawn a great interest to the researchers towards incorporation of biodegradable materials for the implantable 3D printed scaffolds. The aim of this research work is to design, synthesis, and evaluation of carbon quantum dot-polymer nanocomposites using 3D-printing technology for cardiovascular tissue engineering applications. Freeform (without any support), vascular-scale, small diameter (2 mm) tubular scaffolds were fabricated using 3D printing based on fused deposition modelling (FDM) with nanocomposites of bioresorbable polylactic acid (PLA) and carbon quantum dots (CQDs). The PLA-CQD stents demonstrated excellent processability, hydrophilicity, tensile strength, compressive strength, radial stability and cell proliferation relative to pure PLA scaffolds. The results show that the addition of CQDs enhances scaffolds properties significantly, such as, stent hydrophilicity by about 25%, tensile strength by 24%, compressive strength by 66% and cell proliferation by 50% compared to PLA alone. The results show that the combination of 3D printing with PLA-CQD nanocomposites could be a viable method to produce bioresorbable nanocomposites for cardiovasculatures with non-invasive imaging for monitoring cell growth. Furthermore, biological experiments need to be conducted to justify for incorporation of CQDs into polymer nanocomposites in cardiovascular tissue engineering applications.