Abstract
Ulvan, a bioactive natural sulfated polysaccharide, and gelatin, a collagen-derived biopolymer, have attracted interest for the preparation of biomaterials for different biomedical applications, due to their demonstrated compatibility for cell attachment and proliferation. Both ulvan and gelatin have exhibited osteoinductive potential, either alone or in combination with other materials. In the current work, a series of novel hybrid scaffolds based on crosslinked ulvan and gelatin was designed, prepared and characterized. Their mechanical performance, thermal stability, porosity, water-uptake and in vitro degradation ability were assessed, while their morphology was analyzed through scanning electron microscopy. The prepared hybrid ulvan/gelatin scaffolds were characterized by a highly porous and interconnected structure. Human adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hADMSCs) were seeded in selected ulvan/gelatin hybrid scaffolds and their adhesion, survival, proliferation, and osteogenic differentiation efficiency was evaluated. Overall, it was found that the prepared hybrid sponge-like scaffolds could efficiently support mesenchymal stem cells’ adhesion and proliferation, suggesting that such scaffolds could have potential uses in bone tissue engineering.
Highlights
Biomaterials is a rapidly growing sector of materials, engineered especially to tackle therapeutic and diagnostic purposes
Ulvan and gelatin crosslinking was performed by employing the bifunctional epoxide BDDE, which was selected due to its acceptability and applicability in biomedical, pharmaceutical and cosmetic applications
Concentration was kept constant (45 wt %) at all gelatin to ulvan weight ratios employed, in order to avoid the presence of unreacted crosslinker, which is prohibitive for biomedical applications
Summary
Biomaterials is a rapidly growing sector of materials, engineered especially to tackle therapeutic and diagnostic purposes. Marine polysaccharides are regarded as safe and non-immunogenic materials [10,11,12], while they are considered ideal for the development of novel systems for bioapplications, such as tissue engineering and drug delivery, due to the wide range of bioactivities they exhibit. Efforts have focused on the development of biopolymer-based 3D scaffolds for a wide spectrum of biomedical applications Both ulvan and gelatin have exhibited osteoinductive potential, either alone or in combination with other materials so as to prepare scaffolds for osseous tissue regeneration [31,34,36,38,43,56,61,62,63]. A preliminary evaluation of cell adhesion, survival, proliferation, and osteogenic differentiation of human adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hADMSCs) seeded on the ulvan/gelatin sponge-like scaffolds was undertaken in order to explore their potential use in bone tissue regeneration
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