Paradossi Gaio, Finelli Ivana, Cerroni Barbara, Chiessi Ester
Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Chimiche, Università di Roma Tor Vergata and CNR - SOFT, Italy.
Molecules. 2009 Sep 17;14(9):3662-75. doi: 10.3390/molecules14093662.
Synergistic hydrogels are often encountered in polysaccharide mixtures widely used in food and biopharma products. The xanthan and konjac glucomannan pair provides one of the most studied synergistic hydrogels. Recently we showed that the junction zones stabilizing the 3D structure of this gel are present as macromolecular complexes in solution formed by the partially depolymerised polysaccharidic chains. The non-covalent interactions stabilizing the structure of the polysaccharidic complex cause the melting of the ordered structure of the complex in the solution and of the hydrogels. Introduction of chemical cross-links in the 3D structure of the synergistic hydrogel removes this behaviour, adding new features to the swelling and to the viscoelastic properties of the cured hydrogel. The use of epichlorohydrin as low molecular weight cross-linker does not impact unfavourably on the viability of NIH 3T3 fibroblasts.
协同水凝胶在广泛用于食品和生物制药产品的多糖混合物中经常出现。黄原胶和魔芋葡甘聚糖对是研究最多的协同水凝胶之一。最近我们发现，稳定这种凝胶三维结构的连接区以由部分解聚的多糖链在溶液中形成的大分子复合物形式存在。稳定多糖复合物结构的非共价相互作用导致复合物在溶液和水凝胶中的有序结构熔化。在协同水凝胶的三维结构中引入化学交联消除了这种行为，为固化水凝胶的溶胀和粘弹性特性增添了新特征。使用环氧氯丙烷作为低分子量交联剂不会对NIH 3T3成纤维细胞的活力产生不利影响。
