Novel Green Crosslinked Salecan Hydrogels and Preliminary Investigation of Their Use in 3D Printing

Abstract

Salecan, a kind of polysaccharide, is produced by the Agrobacterium ZX09 salt tolerant strain. In this study, green crosslinked citric acid-salecan hydrogels are explored as novel materials with a high potential for use in regenerative medicine. The impact of salecan and citric acid on the final crosslinked hydrogels was intensively studied and estimated in terms of the whole physicochemical properties and antimicrobial activity. FTIR spectra demonstrated the successful green crosslinking of salecan through its esterification with citric acid where the formation of strong covalent bonds collaboratively helped to stabilize the entire hydrogel systems in a wet state. Hydrogels presented a microporous morphology, good swelling capacity, pH responsiveness, great mechanical stability under stress conditions and good antibacterial activity, all related to the concentration of the biopolymers used in the synthesis step. Additionally, salecan hydrogels were preliminary investigated as printing inks. Thanks to their excellent rheological behavior, we optimized the citrate-salecan hydrogel inks and printing parameters to render 3D constructs with great printing fidelity and integrity. The novel synthesized salecan green crosslinked hydrogels enriches the family of salecan-derived hydrogels. Moreover, this work not only expands the application of salecan hydrogels in various fields, but also provides a new potential option of designing salecan-based 3D printed scaffolds for customized regenerative medicine.

3D-Printed Hydrogel for Diverse Applications: A Review

“…Examples include photopolymerization and chemical crosslinking agents. Iwanaga et al [36] focused their efforts on designing and producing fully developed engineered pre-cardiac tissue using 3D bioprinting techniques coupled with enzymatic crosslinking hydrogels. This pioneering investigation shows great potential in the fields of regenerative medicine and cardiac tissue engineering, addressing the significant hurdle of generating functional heart tissues.…”

Novel Nanocomposite Hydrogels Based on Crosslinked Microbial Polysaccharide as Potential Bioactive Wound Dressings

“…In a recent study, salecan was covalently crosslinked with citric acid, a green crosslinker, and good wet-environment stability was attained for a variety of biopolymer and citric acid formulations. Additionally, the potential for using some salecan hydrogel formulations in additive manufacturing process was explored [ 26 ].…”