Chang Chun-Wei, Yeh Yi-Cheun
Institute of Polymer Science and Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, 10617, Taiwan.
Macromol Biosci. 2021 Dec;21(12):e2100248. doi: 10.1002/mabi.202100248. Epub 2021 Sep 12.
Synthetic polymers have been widely employed to prepare hydrogels for biomedical applications, such as cell culture, drug delivery, and tissue engineering. However, the activity of cells cultured in the synthetic polymer-based hydrogels faces the challenges of limited cell proliferation and spreading compared to cells cultured in natural polymer-based hydrogels. To address this concern, a hybrid hydrogel strategy is demonstrated by incorporating thiolated gelatin (GS) into the norbornene-functionalized poly (glycerol sebacate)-co-polyethylene glycol (Nor_PGS-co-PEG, NPP) network to prepare highly biocompatible NPP/GS_UV hydrogels after the thiol-ene photo-crosslinking reaction. The GS introduces several desirable features (i.e., enhanced water content, enlarged pore size, increased mechanical property, and more cell adhesion sites) to the NPP/GS_UV hydrogels, facilitating the cell proliferation and spreading inside the network. Thus, the highly biocompatible NPP/GS_UV hydrogels are promising materials for cell encapsulation and tissue engineering applications. Taken together, the hybrid hydrogel strategy is demonstrated as a powerful approach to fabricate hydrogels with a highly friendly environment for cell culture, expanding the biomedical applications of hydrogels.
合成聚合物已被广泛用于制备用于生物医学应用的水凝胶，如细胞培养、药物递送和组织工程。然而，与在天然聚合物基水凝胶中培养的细胞相比，在合成聚合物基水凝胶中培养的细胞活性面临细胞增殖和铺展受限的挑战。为了解决这一问题，通过将硫醇化明胶（GS）掺入降冰片烯功能化的聚（癸二酸甘油酯）-共-聚乙二醇（Nor_PGS-co-PEG，NPP）网络中，展示了一种混合水凝胶策略，以在硫醇-烯光交联反应后制备具有高度生物相容性的NPP/GS_UV水凝胶。GS为NPP/GS_UV水凝胶引入了几个理想的特性（即增加含水量、扩大孔径、提高机械性能和增加更多细胞粘附位点），促进了网络内细胞的增殖和铺展。因此，具有高度生物相容性的NPP/GS_UV水凝胶是用于细胞封装和组织工程应用的有前途的材料。综上所述，混合水凝胶策略被证明是一种强大的方法，可用于制造对细胞培养具有高度友好环境的水凝胶，扩展了水凝胶的生物医学应用。
