Injectable Amorphous Chitin-Agarose Composite Hydrogels for Biomedical Applications

Journal of Functional Biomaterials

Amirthalingam Sivashanmugam¹  Shantikumar Vasudevan Nair¹  Rajendran Arun Kumar¹  Murali Vishnu Priya¹  Rangasamy Jayakumar¹ 

[1] Amrita Centre for Nanosciences and Molecular Medicine, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre, Kochi 682041, India;

关键词: injectable hydrogel;    amorphous chitin;    agarose;    biomedical applications;   

DOI  :  10.3390/jfb6030849

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Injectable hydrogels are gaining popularity as tissue engineering constructs because of their ease of handling and minimal invasive delivery. Making hydrogels from natural polymers helps to overcome biocompatibility issues. Here, we have developed an Amorphous Chitin (ACh)-Agarose (Agr) composite hydrogel using a simpletechnique. Rheological studies, such as viscoelastic behavior (elastic modulus, viscous modulus, yield stress, and consistency), inversion test, and injectability test, were carried out for differentACh-Agr concentrations. The composite gel, having a concentration of 1.5% ACh and 0.25% Agr, showed good elastic modulus (17.3 kPa), yield stress (3.8 kPa), no flow under gravity, injectability, and temperature stability within the physiological range. Based on these studies, the optimum concentration for injectability was found to be 1.5% ACh and 0.25% Agr. This optimized concentration was used for further studies and characterized using FT-IR and SEM. FT-IR studies confirmed the presence of ACh and Agr in the composite gel. SEM results showed that the lyophilized composite gel had good porosity and mesh like networks. The cytocompatibility of the composite gel was studied using human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs). The composite gels showed good cell viability.These results indicated that this injectable composite gel can be used for biomedical applications.

【 授权许可】

Unknown