Designing novel gelatin-based hydrogels for soft tissue engineering

9^th World Congress on Materials Science and Engineering

June 12-14, 2017 Rome, Italy

Kamol Dey, Silvia Agnelli, Marialaura Serzanti, Patrizia DellEra and Luciana Sartore

University of Brescia, Italy

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Material Sci Eng

Abstract :

Driven by enormous potential of hydrogels, novel gelatin-based biocompatible hybrid hydrogels were developed under mild condition using poly(ethylene glycol) diglycidyl ether (PEG) as a cross-linking agent. Chitosan (CH) and hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC) were added to tune the structural stability, mechanical properties and degradation resistance as well as to better mimic the native extracellular matrix (ECM). Post-curing was essential to achieve suitable structural stability, tunable mechanical strength and controlled degradation resistance of the hydrogels. Structural features and cross-linking interaction of the hydrogels were confirmed by infrared spectroscopy. Mechanical properties were measured by uniaxial tensile tests, and the characterization revealed non-linear and J-shaped stress-strain curves for all hydrogels, similar to those found for native ECM. Structural integrity of these hydrogels was confirmed by the hydrolytic degradation test as well as by the variation of mechanical properties over time. Degradation study demonstrated that the mass loss and change in mechanical properties were dependent on hydrogel compositions and cross-linking. Biological evaluation of the hydrogels was conducted using rat myoblasts and human fibroblasts cell lines. The results showed that the hydrogel scaffolds were not toxic to cells; all of them allowing cell adhesion and proliferation. Hence, these hydrogels might have a great potential for use in the soft tissue engineering applications.

Biography :

Email: k.dey@unibs.it