The main driving idea of the present study was the comparison between two different chemical modifications of hyaluronic acid (HA) followed by the development of nanocomposite hydrogels directly in situ by biomineralization of photocrosslinkable HA polymers through sol-gel synthesis. In this way, it has been possible to overcome some limitations due to classical approaches based on the physical blending of inorganic fillers into polymer matrix. To this aim, methacrylated and maleated HA, synthesized with similar degree of substitution (DS) were compared in terms of mechanical and physico-chemical properties. The success of in situ biomineralization was highlighted by reflect Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analysis. Furthermore, mechanical characterization demonstrated the reinforcing effect of inorganic fillers evidencing a strong correlation with DS. The swelling behavior resulted to be correlated with filler concentration. Finally, the cytotoxicity tests revealed the absence of toxic components and an increase of cell proliferation over culture time was observed, highlighting these bio-nanocomposite hyaluronan derivatives as biocompatible hydrogel with tunable properties.

中文翻译：

---

透明质酸衍生物生物纳米复合水凝胶的原位溶胶凝胶合成。

本研究的主要驱动思想是比较透明质酸 (HA) 的两种不同化学修饰，然后通过溶胶-凝胶合成对可光交联 HA 聚合物进行生物矿化，直接原位开发纳米复合水凝胶。通过这种方式，可以克服基于将无机填料物理共混到聚合物基体中的经典方法所带来的一些限制。为此，对具有相似取代度 (DS) 的甲基丙烯酸酯化和马来化 HA 的机械和物理化学性质进行了比较。反射傅里叶变换红外光谱和热重分析强调了原位生物矿化的成功。此外，机械表征证明了无机填料的增强作用，证明与 DS 具有很强的相关性。溶胀行为与填料浓度相关。最后，细胞毒性测试表明不存在有毒成分，并且观察到细胞增殖随着培养时间的增加而增加，突出显示这些生物纳米复合透明质酸衍生物作为具有可调特性的生物相容性水凝胶。