Abstract
Several methods for auricular cartilage engineering use tissue engineering techniques. However, an ideal method for engineering auricular cartilage has not been reported. To address this issue, we developed a strategy to engineer auricular cartilage using silk fibroin (SF) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) hydrogel. We constructed different hydrogels with various ratios of SF and PVA by using salt leaching, silicone mold casting, and freeze-thawing methods. We characterized each of the hydrogels in terms of the swelling ratio, tensile strength, pore size, thermal properties, morphologies, and chemical properties. Based on the cell viability results, we found a blended hydrogel composed of 50% PVA and 50% SF (P50/S50) to be the best hydrogel among the fabricated hydrogels. An intact 3D ear-shaped auricular cartilage formed six weeks after the subcutaneous implantation of a chondrocyte-seeded 3D ear-shaped P50/S50 hydrogel in rats. We observed mature cartilage with a typical lacunar structure both in vitro and in vivo via histological analysis. This study may have potential applications in auricular tissue engineering with a human ear-shaped hydrogel.
Highlights
Auricular cartilage is elastic cartilage with a collagen network of type-II collagen and highly sulfated glycosaminoglycan [1]
The P50/S50 hydrogel showed significantly more cell growth compared to the P100 and P75/S25 hydrogel after five days of culture. These results indicated that the P50/S50 hydrogel provided a better environment for chondrocyte growth
This study demonstrates a precise method for engineering an ear-shaped cartilage using a polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)/silk fibroin (SF) hydrogel
Summary
Auricular cartilage is elastic cartilage with a collagen network of type-II collagen and highly sulfated glycosaminoglycan (sGAG) [1]. Auricular cartilage has excellent mechanical strength, once injured, its lack of intrinsic self-repair and regenerative abilities make self-healing difficult [2]. Different types of auricular deformities due to congenital anomalies, trauma or burns remain challenging to address [3]. Tissue engineering and reconstruction has been considered the most promising approach to address these types of abnormalities. Chondrogenic differentiation following treatment with appropriate biochemical factors is a prerequisite for successful cartilage tissue engineering. Several studies demonstrated that lack of control over engineered tissue leads to the failure of cartilage tissue engineering. Advanced studies have focused on the progress of 3D printing-based tissue engineering to produce the precise structure of the human tissue. The use of computer-aided design/manufacturing (CAD/CAM) is a conventional method to control 3D architecture of the scaffold [5,6,7,8,9,10]
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