DEVELOPMENT OF AN OPTIMIZED SCAFFOLD FOR TISSUE ENGINEERING BASED ON THE NON-COVALENT FUNCTIONALIZATION OF CARBON NANOMATERIALS
Loading...
Files
Date
2022-12-29
Authors
Salsabeel Mamon Odeh
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
One of the main approaches for tissue engineering for therapeutic purposes involves the utilization of primary cells that are cultured on a biocompatible scaffold with appropriate characteristics. Such tissues aim to maintain and/or restore normal tissue functions. Over the past few years, significant attention has been given to carbon nanomaterials, like carbon nanotubes (CNTs), and their potential applications in generating tissue scaffolds as they tune some of the tissue's physical characteristics such as flexibility, elasticity, and porosity.
A major obstacle to the employment of CNTs in biological applications was the poor limited water dispersibility and cytotoxicity, however, it was found that the functionalization of CNTs adequately with polar functional groups can solve this problem and improve their biocompatibility. Similar benefits could be achieved by coating the CNTs with chitosan, which is biodegradable, biocompatible, and can form porous structures that are appropriate for cell growth.
Therefore, in our project, we aimed to investigate the characteristics of an engineered connective tissue (ECTs) that is composed of primary dermal fibroblasts and collagen hydrogel that is enriched by varying concentrations of noncovalently functionalization multiwall CNTs (MWCNTs) with pyrene moiety and coated with chitosan. The tested concentrations were 0.025%, 0.05%, and 0.1%.
Our data demonstrated that the enrichment of the ECTs with the functionalized MWCNTs significantly increased the electrical conductivity of the tissues in a kind and concentration-dependent manner. Furthermore, the conductivity enhancement was greater with MWCNTs- COOH compared to MWCNTs-NH2, the concentration of 0.025% of MWCNT-COOH was enough to sufficiently enhance the electrical conductivity of the tissue compared to the control tissue. however, this concentration was still associated with some cytotoxicity where it reduces the cell viability by around (20-30) % relative to the control, while there was no significant reduction in viability when adding chitosan to 0.025%MWCNT-COOH, which indicates that chitosan might have a cytoprotective effect against CNT-induced toxicity, in addition to electrical conductivity enhancement.
Keywords: carbon nanomaterials, tissue engineering, chitosan, MWCNT, primary fibroblast.