Laboratorio de Investigaciones en Osteopatías y Metabolismo Mineral, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, La Plata, Argentina.
Instituto de Investigaciones Fisicoquímicas Teóricas y Aplicadas (INIFTA), Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, UNLP, CONICET, CCT, La Plata, Argentina.
J Biomater Sci Polym Ed. 2021 Mar;32(4):504-523. doi: 10.1080/09205063.2020.1849920. Epub 2021 Jan 12.
Cartilage tissue engineering (CTE) has the general objective of restoring and improving damaged cartilage. A very interesting strategy of CTE is to combine different polymers to obtain a viscoelastic material. In this study, we have evaluated the applicability of poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) networks semi-interpenetrated with sodium alginate for CTE. Alginate-containing hydrogels show an increase in scaffold porosity and swelling capacity, when compared with nonporous poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) scaffolds. Primary chondrocytes from young rats were cultured on the hydrogels, and an increase in chondrocyte proliferation and chondrocytic markers was observed in alginate-containing hydrogels. Chondrocytic phenotype was preserved on hydrogels containing the lowest amount of crosslinker and initiator (SEMI 3 and SEMI 4). In addition, nitric oxide production by RAW264.7 macrophages grown on hydrogels was tested, and none of the hydrogels showed high levels of this inflammatory marker after 2 days. These results indicate that our alginate-containing hydrogels could be useful for CTE.
软骨组织工程（CTE）的总体目标是修复和改善受损的软骨。CTE 的一个非常有趣的策略是结合不同的聚合物来获得粘弹性材料。在这项研究中，我们评估了聚（2-羟乙基甲基丙烯酸酯）网络与海藻酸钠半互穿用于 CTE 的适用性。与非多孔聚（2-羟乙基甲基丙烯酸酯）支架相比，含海藻酸盐的水凝胶显示出支架孔隙率和溶胀能力的增加。从小鼠分离的原代软骨细胞在水凝胶上培养，在含海藻酸盐的水凝胶中观察到软骨细胞增殖和软骨细胞标志物的增加。在交联剂和引发剂含量最低的水凝胶（SEMI 3 和 SEMI 4）中保留了软骨细胞表型。此外，还测试了在水凝胶上生长的 RAW264.7 巨噬细胞产生的一氧化氮，在第 2 天，没有一种水凝胶显示出这种炎症标志物的高水平。这些结果表明，我们的含海藻酸盐水凝胶可能对 CTE 有用。
