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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Graphene Oxide Induces Ester Bonds Hydrolysis of

Poly-l-lactic Acid Scaffold to Accelerate Degradation

Cijun Shuai 1,2,3 , Yang Li , Wenjing Yang , Li Yu , Youwen Yang , Shuping Peng , Pei Feng *
1
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4,5
1
2
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1 State Key Laboratory of High-Performance Complex Manufacturing, College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering,
Central South University, Changsha 410083, China
2 Institute of Bioadditive Manufacturing, Jiangxi University of Science and Technology, Nanchang 330013, China
3 Shenzhen Institute of Information Technology, Shenzhen 518172, China
4 NHC Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and The Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Cancer Invasion of the Chinese
Ministry of Education, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan China
5 Cancer Research Institute, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan China

Abstract: Poly-l-lactic acid (PLLA) possesses good biocompatibility and bioabsorbability as scaffold material, while slow
degradation rate limits its application in bone tissue engineering. In this study, graphene oxide (GO) was introduced into the PLLA
scaffold prepared by selective laser sintering to accelerate degradation. The reason was that GO with a large number of oxygen-
containing functional groups attracted water molecules and transported them into scaffold through the interface microchannels
formed between lamellar GO and PLLA matrix. More importantly, hydrogen bonding interaction between the functional groups of
GO and the ester bonds of PLLA induced the ester bonds to deflect toward the interfaces, making water molecules attack the ester
bonds and thereby breaking the molecular chain of PLLA to accelerate degradation. As a result, some micropores appeared on the
surface of the PLLA scaffold, and mass loss was increased from 0.81% to 4.22% after immersing for 4 weeks when 0.9% GO was
introduced. Besides, the tensile strength and compressive strength of the scaffolds increased by 24.3% and 137.4%, respectively,
due to the reinforced effect of GO. In addition, the scaffold also demonstrated good bioactivity and cytocompatibility.
Keywords: Poly-l-lactic acid scaffold, GO, Degradation property, Ester bonds hydrolysis

*Corresponding Author: Pei Feng, State Key Laboratory of High-Performance Complex Manufacturing, College of Mechanical and Electrical
Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China; fengpei@csu.edu.cn
Received: November 15, 2019; Accepted: January 02, 2020; Published Online: January 23, 2020

Citation: Shuai C, Li Y, Yang W, et al., 2020, Graphene oxide induces ester bonds hydrolysis of poly-l-lactic acid scaffold to
accelerate degradation. Int J Bioprint, 6(1):249. DOI: 10.18063/ijb.v6i1.249

1 Introduction modulus of PLLA is close to that of human bone
tissue compared to stainless steel, titanium alloy,
Poly-l-lactic acid (PLLA) is a bone scaffold etc., and can avoid stress shielding effect [8-10]
material [1,2] , recognized by the US Food whereas the degradation rate of PLLA is slow in
and Drug Administration (FDA) with good the human body. It has been reported that PLLA
biocompatibility and bioabsorbability [3,4] . It can needs a complete resorption time of 2 – 3 years ,
[11]
be first degraded into lactic acid in the human while new bone regeneration [12-14] , usually takes
body, then decomposed into carbon dioxide and 12 – 18 weeks . The unmatched degradation rate
[15]
water by metabolism, and finally excreted without of PLLA with new bone regeneration limits its
any harmful residue [5-7] . In addition, the elastic further applications.

© 2020 Shuai, et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), permitting all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited.
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