BACKGROUND:With the promotion of 3D printing technology, 3D printing scaffolds for bone tissue engineering have become the new ideas for jaw bone repair. OBJECTIVE:To compare the physical and biological properties of sheep vertebral bone meal/polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) scaffold, nano-hydroxyapatite (nHA)/PVA scaffold, and sheep vertebral bone meal/PVA nonporous bone plate. METHODS:3D printing technology was used to print sheep vertebral bone meal/PVA scaffold, nHA/PVA scaffold, and sheep vertebral bone meal/PVA nonporous bone plate. Porosity, morphology, water absorption rate and mechanical properties of different scaffolds were detected. Three kinds of scaffolds were al used to culture bone marrow mesenchymal stem cel s, and cel proliferation ability was detected using cel counting kit-8 at 1, 4, 7 days of culture. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:Under scanning electron microscope, the sheep vertebral bone meal/PVA scaffold and nHA/PVA scaffold exhibited regular and interconnected pores with good continuity and clear network structure;the sheep vertebral bone meal/PVA nonporous bone plate had no obvious pores;however, it had dense and evenly distributed micropores with different sizes on its surface. The porosity of nHA/PVA scaffold was lower than that of the sheep vertebral bone meal/PVA scaffold (P<0.05). The water absorption rate was highest for the nHA/PVA scaffold fol owed by the sheep vertebral bone meal/PVA scaffold and the sheep vertebral bone meal/PVA nonporous bone plate (P<0.05). In contrast, the scaffold toughness was highest for the sheep vertebral bone meal/PVA nonporous bone plate, fol owed by the sheep vertebral bone meal/PVA scaffold and nHA/PVA scaffold. In addition, the cel proliferation activity of cel s cultured on the sheep vertebral bone meal/PVA scaffold was significantly higher than that cultured on the other two kinds of scaffolds. Taken together, the 3D printing sheep vertebral bone/PVA scaffold has good physical and chemical performance.