Antimicrobial and bioactive scaffolds for tissue regeneration

With the aim to investigate different approaches for tissue regeneration, we tested various scaffolds sources and their bioactivity once enriching them with different type of bioactive molecules. The first project use 3D matrix enriched with hydroxytyrosol obtained by extraction from olive-oil production wastes olive oil waste-water (OOWW) and olive oil filter cake (OOFC), and studies in vitro its bone regenerative effect. OOFC resulted in high cytotoxicity and small amount of hydroxytyrosol content, whereas OOFC proved not to affect cell viability and to have great antioxidant activity. The second strategy focused on Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) that positively affect bone regeneration. To cope with the frequent bone infection occurring in the fracture site, we studied in vitro and developed a PRP-fibrin scaffold enriched with silver-compounds recognized to have antibacterial activity. They exerted great antibacterial and anti-biofilm activity on S. aureus, S. epidermidis and C. albicans while maintaining the differentiative activity on osteoblasts given by PRP. The third strategy exploited a multitude of factors of the adipose tissue niche evaluating its potential to enhance wound healing. Results show that adipose tissue positively effects skin resident cells and secretes antibacterial factors in response to bacterial stimuli. Last strategy aim was to optimized culture conditions for in vitro microvasculature network formation. The optimal condition included 9% GelMa+ 4% PEG as gel composition whereas HlNECs selected as endothelial cells and adipo-derived MSCs as support cells. The chosen ratio 1: 1, no GFs and no FBS in the media were the other condition that enable elongated structure network formation throughout the gel. Our work investigated different tissue regeneration strategies for different tissue, although further studies are required, it proposes new insights and approaches in this constantly evolving field.