Research and Development, Surgical Devices, Covidien LLC, North Haven, CT 06473, USA.
Acta Biomater. 2012 Jan;8(1):124-32. doi: 10.1016/j.actbio.2011.07.028. Epub 2011 Aug 26.
There are limited options for surgeons to repair simple or complex tissue defects due to injury, illness or disease. Consequently, there are few treatments for many serious ailments, including neural-related injuries, myocardial infarction and focal hyaline cartilage defects. Tissue-engineered scaffolds offer great promise for addressing these wide-ranging indications; however, there are many considerations that need to be made when conceptualizing a product. For many applications, an in situ forming scaffold that could completely fill defects with complex geometries, adhere to adjacent tissues and foster cell proliferation would be ideal. Additionally, the scaffold would preferably have tailored mechanical properties similar to native tissues and highly controllable gelation kinetics, and would not require an external trigger, such as ultraviolet light, for gelation. We have developed a unique injectable hydrogel system composed of collagen and multi-armed poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) that meets all of these criteria. The collagen component enables cellular adhesion and permits enzymatic degradation, while the multi-armed PEG component has amine-reactive chemistry that also binds proteins/tissue and is hydrolytically degradable. We have characterized the mechanical properties, swelling, degradation rates and cytocompatibility of these novel hydrogels. The hydrogels demonstrated tunable mechanics, variable swelling and suitable degradation profiles. Cells adhered and proliferated to near confluence on the hydrogels over 7 days. These data suggest that these collagen and PEG hydrogels exhibit the mechanical, physical and biological properties suitable for use as an injectable tissue scaffold for the treatment of a variety of simple and complex tissue defects.
由于受伤、疾病或疾病，外科医生修复简单或复杂组织缺陷的选择有限。因此，许多严重疾病的治疗方法很少，包括与神经相关的损伤、心肌梗死和局灶性透明软骨缺陷。组织工程支架为解决这些广泛的适应症提供了巨大的希望；然而，在构思产品时需要考虑许多因素。对于许多应用，完全填充具有复杂几何形状的缺陷、粘附到相邻组织并促进细胞增殖的原位形成支架将是理想的。此外，支架最好具有类似于天然组织的定制机械性能和高度可控的凝胶化动力学，并且不需要外部触发，如紫外线，用于凝胶化。我们已经开发出一种独特的可注射水凝胶系统，由胶原和多臂聚乙二醇（PEG）组成，符合所有这些标准。胶原成分能够促进细胞黏附和允许酶降解，而多臂 PEG 成分具有胺反应性化学性质，还可以结合蛋白质/组织，并且可水解降解。我们已经对这些新型水凝胶的机械性能、溶胀、降解速率和细胞相容性进行了表征。水凝胶表现出可调节的力学性能、可变的溶胀和合适的降解曲线。细胞在水凝胶上粘附并增殖至接近融合 7 天。这些数据表明，这些胶原和 PEG 水凝胶具有适合用作各种简单和复杂组织缺陷的可注射组织支架的机械、物理和生物学特性。
