| خلاصه مقاله | Background and Aim: Cartilage tissue engineering (CTTE) is proposed
as an emerging promising therapeutic strategy that offers advantages
over the current treatment approaches, which seeks to overcome the
cartilage self-repair limitation through the development of cellular
scaffolds that closely mimic the complex structure of cartilage tissue.
Among a variety of biomaterial scaffolds used in CCTE, in situ injectable
hydrogel systems are highly desirable for the clinical applications due
to the biocompatibility, highly hydrated 3-D environment similar to the
cartilaginous ECM structure, ability to effectively deliver cells and/or
bioactive molecules to targeted sites.
Methods: About 1.5 g aliquot of pectin was dissolved in 150 mL of
purified water in a 500 mL flask. A total of 0.8 g of NaIO4 was dissolved
in 10 mL of purified water and added dropwise to the pectin solution.
The mixture was allowed to stir for 2 hours at room temperature before
0.4 mL of ethylene glycol was added. The solution was dialyzed for 2
days. The same procedure was used for the oxidation of cellulose CNCs.
Finally, a double-barrel syringe was used to make injectable hydrogels
of chemically cross-linked pectin and CNCs. Barrel A contained a 4 wt
% chitosan solution in purified water and barrel B contained a 4 wt %
pectin-CHO and CHO-CNC solution. Then, all materials were sterilized
and the polymer solutions at different weight ratios were prepared in
the presence of chondrocytes in a specific medium. Subsequently,
chondrocytes were incorporated into the hydrogels and the cell viability
and proliferation of cells were assessed.
Results: In this study, a biomimetic injectable chitosan/pectin hydrogel was
produced with excellent properties for CTTE scaffold. The hydrogel was
optimized and showed suitable physicochemical properties, including
thermal stability, compressive strength, viscoelastic behavior, swelling
ratio, and degradation rate. Having such characteristics, the hydrogel
meets the requirements for the cartilage repair. The hydrogel precursors
and cross-linked hydrogels were thoroughly characterized regarding their
chemical, morphological, microstructural and mechanical properties, as
well as their swelling and degradation profiles. The hydrogels provided
a host tissue-mimetic microenvironment for maintaining chondrocyte
phenotype.
Conclusion: Altogether, we successfully prepared the biomimetic
injectable hydrogel without incorporating any extraneous cross-linking
agents under physiological conditions. The properties of the hydrogel
such as gelation time, mechanical properties and degradation behavior,
were easily adjusted. When chondrocytes were encapsulated into
hydrogels, it was found that cell behavior was remarkably affected by
CS/pectin composition. The in-vitro study showed that the incorporation
of chondrocytes to the hydrogel was able to maintain long-term
chondrocytes survivability and improve cartilaginous ECM deposition.
We believe the biomimetic injectable hydrogel based on polysaccharides
is very promising scaffolds for CTTE application. |