Abstract
ABSTRACTIn tissue engineering, scaffolding plays an important role in accommodating and stimulating new tissue growth. Chitosan and alginate are two widely used natural polymers in tissue engineering. Here, we prepared the chitosan-alginate (Chi-Alg) hydrogel from naturally derived chitosan and alginate polymers. The Fourier-transformed infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction results demonstrated that a chitosan-alginate hydrogel was constructed due to the strong ionic interaction between the positively charged amino groups of chitosan and the negatively charged carboxyl groups of alginate. The scanning electron microscopy and contact angle results showed the inner porous structure and highly hydrophilic property of chitosan-alginate hydrogel. As the two most promising cell types in nerve tissue engineering, both olfactory ensheathing cells and neural stem cells proliferated well on the chitosan-alginate hydrogel. All results indicated the good potential application of a chitosan-alginate hydrogel for neural tissue engineering.
Highlights
Chitosan [b-(1,4)-2-amino-2-deoxy-D-glucan], a cationic polymer, is the N-deacetylated derivative of chitin, which is abundant in nature
In order to evaluate the cytocompatibility of the chitosan-alginate hydrogel, three other hydrogels (Matrigel®, Fibrin glue and E-matrix) were selected for comparison
In the chitosan-alginate spectrum (Figure 1(c)), the amide II peak (1579 cm¡1) was significantly intensified, and the peaks of the amino group (1596 cm¡1) and carboxyl group (1619 cm¡1) were absent. These changes demonstrated that the formation of the chitosan-alginate hydrogel was due to the ionic interaction between the negatively charged carboxyl group (–COO¡) of alginate and the positively charged amino group (–NH3+) of chitosan
Summary
Chitosan [b-(1,4)-2-amino-2-deoxy-D-glucan], a cationic polymer, is the N-deacetylated derivative of chitin, which is abundant in nature. Chitosan has drawn much attention because of its good biocompatibility, biodegradability, low toxicity and ability to be fabricated into various forms in tissue engineering, such as films [1], porous scaffolds [2], hydrogels [3] and tubes [4,5,6]. Hydrophilic and biodegradable under normal physiological conditions [9] and has been widely used in bone tissue engineering [10] and drug delivery [11]. Water-soluble derivatives of chitosan have been used to blend with alginate to prepare Ca2+-crosslinked hydrogel beads, which generally exhibit pH-sensitive and ionic-sensitive swelling and drug release properties [12]
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