Ultraviolet light crosslinking of poly(trimethylene carbonate) for elastomeric tissue engineering scaffolds

Synthesis and properties of photo-crosslinked mixed-macromer networks

“…Wettable or hydrophilic surfaces have the tendency to interact with or be dissolved by water molecules. Cell adherence to surfaces is very dependent on this parameter, since cell adhesion was found to be optimal at intermediate hydrophilicity [30,31], while proliferation increases with increasing hydrophobicity [32,33]. Several treatments and material bulk properties influence the wettability of surfaces.…”

“…Hydrophilicity is probably the most important parameter in cell related studies [30]. Wettable or hydrophilic surfaces have the tendency to interact with or be dissolved by water molecules.…”

“…Cell adhesion is enhanced when surfaces are pretreated with proteins and protein adsorption is again depending on hydrophilicity. Therefore cell adhesion is influenced by two parameters: hydrophilicity and protein adsorption [30]. The most conventional method to assess wettability is performing water contact angle measurements.…”

“…For instance, increasing the number of charged groups on the surface affects wettability, because hydrogen bonding with the water is enhanced and the droplet spreads along the hydrophilic surface, resulting in a lower contact angle [25]. Cells respond to this by an increase in adhesion [30,31].…”

“…Ethylene carbonate (EC), a benign water soluble compound melting at 37 °C that has also been used in preparing poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) [29] and poly(trimethylene carbonate) (PTMC) tissue engineering scaffolds [30] by TIPS, was used to dissolve mixtures of methacrylate end-functionalized oligomers (macromers).…”