Description
Marine sponges possess remarkable structures, with highly interconnected
pores, making them excellent candidates as nature made scaffolds
with potential use in tissue engineering strategies. In addition
they also exhibit interesting high swelling degree and a skeleton composed
mainly of collagen fibres, in some species with embedded siliceous
or carbonate spicules. In the present study, several marine
sponges (Dysidea avara, Chondrosia remiformis, Axinella damicornis, Petrosia ficiformis, Agelas oroides, Sarcotragus spinosulus, and Psammocinia
sp.) were decellularized by supercritical fluids, for further use as
natural scaffolds for osteoblasts. Supercritical fluid extraction was performed
at 200 bar and 40 °C for 6 hours, in the presence of ethanol
(40%), which was used as a co-solvent. The morphology of sponges,
namely porosity interconnectivity and mean pore size, was analysed by
SEM and micro-CT. To evaluate decellularization, sponges before and
after treatment were analysed in sections stained with Hematoxylin-
Eosin. Cellularization experiments were performed in S. spinosulus,
using Saos-2 cell line. Cells were seeded on the sponge, with further
evaluation of cell morphology by SEM, cell viability by Live/dead cell
staining together with phalloidin.and cell proliferation by DNA quantification.
The results of in vitro tests demonstrate the success of the proposed
methodology for the production of natural scaffolds from marine
sponges, namely for Sarcotragus spinosulus.
; Silva, Joana M. 
