Carbodiimide cross-linking of amniotic membranes in the presence of amino acid bridges.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the carbodiimide cross-linking of amniotic membrane (AM) in the presence of amino acid bridges. The biological tissues were treated with glycine, lysine, or glutamic acid and chemically cross-linked to examine the role of amino acid types in collagenous biomaterial processing. Results of zeta potential measurements showed that the use of uncharged, positively and negatively charged amino acids dictates the charge state of membrane surface. Tensile strength and water content measurements demonstrated that the addition of lysine molecules to the cross-linking system can increase the cross-linking efficiency and dehydration degree while the introduction of glutamic acid in the AM samples decreases the number of cross-links per unit mass of chemically modified tissue collagen. The differences in the cross-linking density further determined the thermal and biological stability by differential scanning calorimetry and in vitro degradation tests. As demonstrated in matrix permeability studies, the improved formation of covalent cross-linkages imposed by lysine facilitated construction of stronger cross-linking structures. In contrast, the added glycine molecules were insufficient to enhance the resistances of the proteinaceous matrices to thermal denaturation and enzymatic degradation. The cytocompatibility of these biological tissue membranes was evaluated by using human corneal epithelial cell cultures. Results of cell viability, metabolic activity, and pro-inflammatory gene expression level showed that the AM materials cross-linked with carbodiimide in the presence of different types of amino acids are well tolerated without evidence of detrimental effect on cell growth. In addition, the amino acid treated and carbodiimide cross-linked AM implants had good biocompatibility in the anterior chamber of the rabbit eye model. Our findings suggest that amino acid type is a very important engineering parameter to mediate carbodiimide cross-linking of AM collagen.