Tough and Cell-Compatible Chitosan Physical Hydrogels for Mouse Bone Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Vitro

Abstract

Most hydrogels involve synthetic polymers and organic cross-linkers that cannot simultaneously fulfill the mechanical and cell-compatibility requirements of biomedical applications. We prepared a new type of chitosan physical hydrogel with various degrees of deacetylation (DDs) via the heterogeneous deacetylation of nanoporous chitin hydrogels under mild conditions. The DD of the chitosan physical hydrogels ranged from 56 to 99%, and the hydrogels were transparent and mechanically strong because of the extra intra- and intermolecular hydrogen bonding interactions between the amino and hydroxyl groups on the nearby chitosan nanofibrils. The tensile strength and Young's modulus of the chitosan physical hydrogels were 3.6 and 7.9 MPa, respectively, for a DD of 56% and increased to 12.1 and 92.0 MPa for a DD of 99% in a swelling equilibrium state. In vitro studies demonstrated that mouse bone mesenchymal stem cells (mBMSCs) cultured on chitosan physical hydrogels had better adhesion and proliferation than those cultured on chitin hydrogels. In particular, the chitosan physical hydrogels promoted the differentiation of the mBMSCs into epidermal cells in vitro. These materials are promising candidates for applications such as stem cell research, cell therapy, and tissue engineering.

Chitosan Wound Dressings Incorporating Exosomes Derived from MicroRNA-126-Overexpressing Synovium Mesenchymal Stem Cells Provide Sustained Release of Exosomes and Heal Full-Thickness Skin Defects in a Diabetic Rat Model

“…In previous studies, the gelatinization of CS was usually performed at high temperature such as 76°C in a boiling water bath [], 60°C for 24 hours [], or 80°C for 3.5 hours []. Indeed, such high‐temperature polymerization is the easiest method of obtaining regular CS hydrogel.…”

Hydrogels based on chitosan in tissue regeneration: How do they work? A mini review

“…After a 2-week osteogenic culture in vitro, the BM-MSCs in hybrid and chitosan scaffolds showed strong osteogenesis and bone-matrix formation. To make simple but tough chitosan scaffolds, Ding et al 75 directly generated chitosan hydrogels via the heterogeneous deacetylation of nanoporous chitin hydrogels. The tensile strength can reach 12.1 MPa after three heterogeneous deacetylation cycles.…”

A Robust, Tough and Multifunctional Polyurethane/Tannic Acid Hydrogel Fabricated by Physical-Chemical Dual Crosslinking

“…On account of their admirable swelling property and eco-friendliness, hydrogels are applied in many fields such as medicine [3,4], agriculture [5,6] and cosmetics [7], etc. However, it is still a big challenge to prepare hydrogels for load-bearing applications including sensors [8,9], structural biomaterials [10,11], and soft robotics [12][13][14], because commonly synthetic hydrogels possess low mechanical robustness, poor stretchability and toughness, which are derived from their inherent structural heterogeneity or absence of effective energy dissipation mechanism, restricting their scopes of practical application [15]. Recently, many works have been done to exploit novel polymerization approaches for preparing hydrogels with preferable mechanical performance, for instance, nanocomposite hydrogel [16], double network (DN) hydrogel [17], double-crosslinked (DC) hydrogel [18], etc.…”