Abstract
Biologically active materials from marine sources have been receiving increasing attention as they are free from the transmissible diseases and religious restrictions associated with the use of mammalian resources. Among various other biomaterials from marine sources, alginate and fish gelatin (f-gelatin), with their inherent bioactivity and physicochemical tunability, have been studied extensively and applied in various biomedical fields such as regenerative medicine, tissue engineering, and pharmaceutical products. In this study, by using alginate and f-gelatin’s chemical derivatives, we developed a marine-based interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) hydrogel consisting of alginate and f-gelatin methacryloyl (f-GelMA) networks via physical and chemical crosslinking methods, respectively. We then evaluated their physical properties (mechanical strength, swelling degree, and degradation rate) and cell behavior in hydrogels. Our results showed that the alginate/f-GelMA hydrogel displayed unique physical properties compared to when alginate and f-GelMA were used separately. These properties included high mechanical strength, low swelling and degradation rate, and an increase in cell adhesive ability. Moreover, for the first time, we introduced and optimized the application of alginate/f-GelMA hydrogel in a three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting system with high cell viability, which breaks the restriction of their utilization in tissue engineering applications and suggests that alginate/f-GelMA can be utilized as a novel bioink to broaden the uses of marine products in biomedical fields.
Highlights
IntroductionHydrogels, which have properties of 3D polymeric networks and a natural extracellular matrix (ECM), have emerged and been widely studied in biomedical fields, including tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and pharmaceutical processing [3,4]
To address the need for cell culture research in native tissue, three-dimensional (3D) cell culture systems have gained increasing attention over the past decade [1,2]
In the mechanical properties test, the pure alginate hydrogel showed a typical increase in mechanical strength with the increase of concentration and low mechanical strength when its compressive modulus was around 40 kPa, even at 4% alginate, compared with alginate/f-gelatin methacryloyl (f-GelMA)
Summary
Hydrogels, which have properties of 3D polymeric networks and a natural extracellular matrix (ECM), have emerged and been widely studied in biomedical fields, including tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and pharmaceutical processing [3,4]. Both synthetic and naturally sourced hydrogels have facilitated the control of certain physical properties, such as mechanical strength, degradation, swelling, and stiffness, in order to stimulate cells to form functional tissue in a biomimicked physiological. Mar. Drugs 2018, 16, 484; doi:10.3390/md16120484 www.mdpi.com/journal/marinedrugs. Mar. Drugs 2018, 16, 484 state [5]. Of the natural resources available, biopolymers from marine sources have been receiving increasing attention as they are free from the transmissible diseases and religious restrictions associated with the use of mammalian resources, as well as the fact that they enable high production at a low cost [7,8,9]
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