Abstract: Objective To explore the feasibility of porous scaffold based on egg white for tissue-engineered cartilage regeneration. Methods Egg white was mixed with deionized water in different volume ratios(1:0, 1:1 and 1:2) to fabricate porous scaffolds after freeze-drying. Afterwards, the three kinds of scaffolds were conducted with gross observation, porous size and mechanical property examination. Chondrocytes derived from rabbit ear in the second passage were seeded into the scaffolds with different volume ratios and cultured in vitro. The examination of Living & dead staining and cell proliferation assay were conducted after in vitro cultivation for 1, 4 and 7 days. Moreover, the chondrogenesis was observed by histological examination after in vitro culture for 3 weeks. Results Porous scaffolds could be fabricated by all the three kinds of egg white with different volume ratios. The pore size presented significantly increasing trend with the increase of deionized water content, but the mechanical property presented the reversed trend. The examination of both living & dead staining and cell proliferation assay showed that the chondrocytes could attach and proliferate on all the three kinds of scaffold. When extended the in vitro culture time to 3 weeks, HE staining showed that egg white scaffolds of all three groups had immature neocartilage matrix formation, which confirmed the feasibility of constructing cartilage based on egg white scaffold in vitro.Notably, with the increase of deionized water ratio, the amounts of residual scaffolds decreased but the component of neocartilage matrix increased. Conclusion Porous scaffolds based on egg white are suitable for constructing tissue engineered cartilage.

Key words: Egg white, Chondrocyte, Cartilage regeneration, Tissue engineering, Scaffold