Abstract

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.

摘要

软骨组织工程 (CTE) 的总体目标是恢复和改善受损的软骨。CTE 的一个非常有趣的策略是将不同的聚合物组合以获得粘弹性材料。在这项研究中，我们评估了与海藻酸钠半渗透的聚（甲基丙烯酸 2-羟乙酯）网络对 CTE 的适用性。与无孔聚（甲基丙烯酸 2-羟乙酯）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。来自年轻大鼠的原代软骨细胞在水凝胶上培养，在含有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。软骨细胞表型保留在含有最低量交联剂和引发剂（SEMI 3 和 SEMI 4）的水凝胶上。此外，测试了在水凝胶上生长的 RAW264.7 巨噬细胞产生的一氧化氮，2 天后没有任何水凝胶显示出高水平的这种炎症标志物。这些结果表明我们的含有藻酸盐的水凝胶可用于 CTE。