Hydrogel, as a good cartilage tissue-engineered scaffold, not only has to possess robust mechanical property but also has to have an intrinsic self-healing property to integrate itself or the surrounding host cartilage. In this work a double cross-linked network (DN) was designed and prepared by combining Diels-Alder click reaction and acylhydrazone bond. The DA reaction maintained the hydrogel's structural integrity and mechanical strength in physiological environment, while the dynamic covalent acylhydrazone bond resulted in hydrogel's self-healing property and controlled the on-off switch of network cross-link density. At the same time, the aldehyde groups contained in hydrogel further promote good integration of the hydrogel to surrounding tissue based on aldehyde-amine Schiff-base reaction. This kind of hydrogel has good structural integrity, autonomous self-healing, and tissue-adhesive property and simultaneously will have a good application in tissue engineering and tissue repair field.

No abstract

Injectable HA/PEG hydrogel was crosslinked by integrating the enzymatic crosslinking and Diels–Alder click chemistry and showed excellent shape recovery and anti-fatigue properties at a high compressive stress.

Host immune response induced by foreign bone biomaterials plays an important role in determining their fate after implantation. Hence, it is well worth designing advanced bone substitute materials with beneficial immunomodulatory properties to modulate the host-material interactions. Bioactive glasses (BG), with excellent osteoconductivity and osteoinductivity, are regarded as important biomaterials in the field of bone regeneration. In order to explore a novel BG-based osteoimmunomodulatory implant with the capacity of potentially enhancing bone regeneration, it is a possible way to regulate the local immune microenvironment through manipulating macrophage polarization. In this study, strontium-substituted submicrometer bioactive glass (Sr-SBG) was prepared as an osteoimmunomodulatory bone repair material. To investigate whether the incorporation of Sr into SBG could synergistically improve osteogenesis by altering macrophage response, we systematically evaluated the interaction between Sr-SBG and macrophage during the process of bone regeneration by in vitro biological evaluation and in vivo histological assessment. It was found that the Sr-SBG modulates proper inflammatory status, leading to enhanced osteogenesis of mouse mesenchymal stem cells (mMSCs) and suppressed osteoclastogenesis of RAW 264.7 cells compared to SBG without strontium substitution. In vivo study confirmed that Sr-SBG initiated a less severe immune response and had an improved effect on bone regeneration than SBG, which corresponded with the in vitro evaluation. In conclusion, these findings suggested that Sr-SBG could be a promising immunomodulatory bone repair material designed for improved bone regeneration.

This study aimed to investigate the effect of bioactive glasses on cutaneous wound healing in both normal rats and streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats. Bioactive glass ointments, prepared by mixing the sol-gel bioactive glass 58S (SGBG-58S), nanobioactive glass (NBG-58S) and the melt-derived 45S5 bioactive glass (45S5) powder with Vaseline (V) at 18% weight percentage, were used to heal full thickness excision wounds. Pure V was used as control in this study. Compared to SGBG-58S, NBG-58S consists of relatively dispersible nanoparticles with smaller size. The analysis of wound healing rate and wound healing time showed that bioactive glasses promoted wound healing. The ointments containing SGBG-58S and NBG-58S healed the wounds more quickly and efficiently than the ointment containing 45S5. Histological examination indicated that bioactive glasses promoted the proliferation of fibroblasts and growth of granulation tissue. Immunohistochemical staining showed that the production of two growth factors, VEGF and FGF2, which are beneficial to wound healing, was also stimulated during the healing process. Transmission electron microscope observations showed that fibroblasts in wounds treated with bioactive glasses contained more rough endoplasmic reticula and had formed new capillary microvessels by the seventh day. The effects of SGBG-58S and NBG-58S were better than those of 45S5. All results suggest that bioactive glasses, especially SGBG-58S and NBG-58S, can accelerate the recovery of skin wounds in both normal and diabetes-impaired healing models and have a great potential for use in wound repair in the future.

No abstract

No abstract

This study shows that carotid intima-media thickening, but not carotid atherosclerotic plaque, is positively associated with ARD. Further studies to explore the underlying mechanism are awaited.