title: Preparation of chitosan/mesoporous silica nanoparticle composite hydrogels for sustained co-delivery of biomacromolecules and small chemical drugs.
abstract: We have developed composite hydrogels of chitosan (CS) and mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) in this study. The gelation rate, gel strength, drug delivery behavior and chondrocyte proliferation properties were investigated. The introduction of MSNs into CS accelerated the gelation process at body temperature and also increased the elastic modulusG' from 1000 to 1800 Pa. When we used gentamicin (GS) and bovine serum albumin (BSA) as model small chemical drugs and biomacromolecules, respectively, the CS/MSN hydrogels released GS and BSA in a sustained manner simultaneously, but the CS hydrogels only showed sustained BSA release. Furthermore,in vitrochondrocyte culture showed that the CS/MSN composite hydrogels indeed performed much better in supporting chondrocyte growth and maintaining chondrocytic phenotype compared to the CS hydrogels. Therefore, the results suggest that the CS/MSN composite hydrogels can be potentially very useful for cartilage regeneration.
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, 516 Jungong Road, Shanghai 200093, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, 516 Jungong Road, Shanghai 200093, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yufang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1295 Ding-Xi Road, Shanghai 200050, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Lingxia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1295 Ding-Xi Road, Shanghai 200050, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Jianlin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shi
keywords: cartilage regeneration; chitosan; hydrogels; mesoporous silica nanoparticles