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In addition, the adhesion and proliferation efficiencies of cells in PMs were measured

quantitatively by the cell counting and CCK-8 analyses, respectively. The experimental results

showed that the PMs possessed excellent cell adhesion ability The average adhesion rate of

MC3T3-E1 and MAEC cells in EO-MTs was 6.0% at 3 h in the static culturing mode compared to

the inoculated cell numbers and then increased to 10.5% and 28.6% in 9 and 24 h, respectively

(Figure 4B). To this end, the cell adhesion rate in the dynamic culture method was 33.1% at 24 h,

which was higher than that of the static culturing method. Although there exists a slight difference,

these cell culturing modes presented excellent adhesion efficacies. Further, the cell proliferation

efficiency in EO-MTs showed that the relative viability rate of the harbored cells was almost

doubled from day 1 to day 7 in the static culture, indicating that the 3D microenvironment of PMs

was optimum for cell growth (Figure 4C). Similarly, according to the CLSM observations (Figure

4A), the number of dynamically cultured C518 chondrocytes also increased significantly after

initial adhesion within the polymer structure. Besides, C518 chondrocyte cells showed a steady

state of growth in PMs (Figure 4D, E). Notably, the C518 chondrocyte cells showed similar growth

trends with the MAEC and MC3T3-E1 cells in terms of proliferation and infiltration into the

interiors of the PMs in 24 h. The cell adhesion rate was 58.2% at 24 h by the dynamic culture

method, which was higher than that of the static culturing method.

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