A supramolecular injectable methacryloyl chitosan-tricine-based hydrogel with 3D printing potential for tissue engineering applications

• Autor(a) principal: Ouro, Pedro M. S.
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Outros Autores: Costa, Dora C. S., Amaral, Adérito J. R., Mano, João F.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10773/38325
• topic: Macromolecules; Polysaccharides; Injectable systems; Scaffolds

Printable hydrogels have attracted significant attention as versatile, tunable, and spatiotemporally controlled biomaterials for tissue engineering (TE) applications. Several chitosan-based systems are reported presenting low or no solubility in aqueous solutions at physiological pH. Herein, a novel neutrally charged, biomimetic, injectable, and cytocompatible dual-crosslinked (DC) hydrogel system based on a double functionalized chitosan (CHT) with methacryloyl and tricine moieties (CHTMA-Tricine), completely processable at physiological pH, with promising three-dimensional (3D) printing potential is presented. Tricine, an amino acid typically used in biomedicine, is capable of establishing supramolecular interactions (H-bonds) and is never explored as a hydrogel component for TE. CHTMA-Tricine hydrogels demonstrate significantly greater toughness (ranging from 656.5 ± 82.2 to 1067.5 ± 121.5 kJ m-3 ) compared to CHTMA hydrogels (ranging from 382.4 ± 44.1 to 680.8 ± 104.5 kJ m-3 ), highlighting the contribution of the supramolecular interactions for the overall reinforced 3D structure provided by tricine moieties. Cytocompatibility studies reveal that MC3T3-E1 pre-osteoblasts cells remain viable for 6 days when encapsulated in CHTMA-Tricine constructs, with semi-quantitative analysis showing ≈80% cell viability. This system's interesting viscoelastic properties allow the fabrication of multiple structures, which couple with a straightforward approach, will open doors for the design of advanced chitosan-based biomaterials through 3D bioprinting for TE.