The Department of Surgery and Children's Center for Fetal Research, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
The Department of Pediatric Surgery, Osaka University graduate School of Medicine, Osaka, Japan.
J Biomed Mater Res B Appl Biomater. 2021 Jun;109(6):921-931. doi: 10.1002/jbm.b.34756. Epub 2020 Nov 9.
Gelatin hydrogels are naturally derived scaffolds useful for tissue engineering because of their cytocompatibility and controllable degradability. However, they are brittle and inflexible when dry, which limits their use for in utero tissue engineering in large animal models. Therefore, in this study, we attempted to generate flexible gelatin sheets by adding various plasticizers with different molecular weights (MW). We systematically evaluated the flexibility, sustainability, and potential clinical utility of the resulting flexible gelatin sheets. Gelatin sheets with low-MW plasticizers, such as monosaccharides or sugar alcohols, showed a reduced tensile modulus in dynamic viscoelasticity, which reflected their actual flexibility. Wet gelatin sheets containing plasticizers showed higher tensile strength than the nonplasticizer control, although wet gelatin sheets under all conditions had a much lower tensile strength than dry gelatin sheets. In a functional study, gelatin sheets containing glycerol, which has the lowest MW among sugar alcohols, showed encouraging results, such as good fit to the curvature of the experimental animal, biocompatibility, and suitability for endoscopic approaches. The findings of this study should enable the expansion of future applications for flexible gelatin sheets.
明胶水凝胶是一种天然衍生的支架，具有细胞相容性和可控制的降解性，因此非常适合组织工程。然而，它们在干燥时易碎且不灵活，这限制了它们在大型动物模型中的宫内组织工程中的应用。因此，在这项研究中，我们试图通过添加具有不同分子量（MW）的各种增塑剂来生成柔性明胶片。我们系统地评估了所得柔性明胶片的柔韧性、可持续性和潜在的临床实用性。具有低 MW 增塑剂的明胶片，如单糖或糖醇，在动态粘弹性中表现出较低的拉伸模量，这反映了其实际的柔韧性。含有增塑剂的湿明胶片的拉伸强度高于不含增塑剂的对照，但所有条件下的湿明胶片的拉伸强度都远低于干明胶片。在功能研究中，含有甘油的明胶片（甘油是糖醇中 MW 最低的）表现出令人鼓舞的结果，例如与实验动物的曲率良好匹配、生物相容性和适用于内窥镜方法。这项研究的结果应该能够扩展未来对柔性明胶片的应用。
