title: Tailoring chitosan/collagen scaffolds for tissue engineering: Effect of composition and different crosslinking agents on scaffold properties.
abstract: Chitosan/collagen (Chit/Col) blends have demonstrated great potential for use in tissue engineering (TE) applications. However, there exists a lack of detailed study on the influence of important design parameters (i.e, component ratio or crosslinking methods) on the essential properties of the scaffolds (morphology, mechanical stiffness, swelling, degradation and cytotoxicity). This work entailed a systematic study of these essential properties of three Chit/Col compositions, covering a wide range of component ratios and using different crosslinking methods. Our results showed the possibility of tailoring these properties by changing component ratios, since different interactions occurred between Chit/Col: samples with Chit-enriched compositions showed a hydrogen-bonding type complex (HC), whereas a self-crosslinking phenomenon was induced in Col-enriched scaffolds. Additionally, material and biological properties of the resultant matrices were further adjusted and tuned by changing crosslinking conditions. In such way, we obtained a wide range of scaffolds whose properties were tailored to meet specific needs of TE applications.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. Electronic address: anamamar@ucm.es.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Martínez
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: M D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Blanco
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, University of Cambridge, 27 Charles Babbage Road, Cambridge, CB3 0FS, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Davidenko
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, University of Cambridge, 27 Charles Babbage Road, Cambridge, CB3 0FS, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: R E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Cameron
mesh_terms: D001672:Biocompatible Materials / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D018929:Cell Culture Techniques; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D048271:Chitosan / Q000737:chemistry*; D003094:Collagen / Q000737:chemistry*; D017364:Collagenases / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D061986:MCF-7 Cells; D008422:Materials Testing; D009113:Muramidase / Q000378:metabolism; D016062:Porosity; D023822:Tissue Engineering; D054457:Tissue Scaffolds
chemical_list: D001672:Biocompatible Materials; D003094:Collagen; D048271:Chitosan; D009113:Muramidase; D017364:Collagenases
keywords: Chitosan; Collagen; Crosslinking (XL); Scaffolds; Tissue engineering (TE)