Synthesis and characterization of copolymer materials from chitosan and polyethylene glycol: Evaluation of potential for use in man-made blood vessels; and modeling of cell-material dynamic interactions

Blood vessel may have multi-layer structure with one layer offering the necessary mechanical properties, and the most inner layer offering blood compatibility. One goal of the research was to get some basic information about the in-vivo blood interaction and degradation properties of 3 types of modified chitosan materials: chitosan-g-PEG with 54.2% PEG, chitosan ionically bound with heparin, and chitosan crosslinked by sebacic acid and ionically bound with heparin. For studying the in-vivo blood interaction properties, the materials were processed in the way of mimicking blood vessels as two-layer structure, with outer layer as porous structure, and inner layer as smooth dense structure that were made from one of the 3 types of materials. They were implanted into rats to replace part of blood vessels, and the results of blood vessel replacement were observed.; In recent studies, chitosan has been found to be a promising base material for a number of tissue engineering applications. The goal of this investigation was to modify the elastic modulus of chitosan material without loss of strength to make chitosan material have different suitable elastic modulus for different biomedical applications. PEG side chains were grafted onto chitosan to make copolymer material. Copolymer's mechanical, micro-structural, cell interaction properties were investigated. It was found that with increasing PEG content, the elastic modulus decreased because the crystal structure in chitosan was destroyed by the grafted PEG chains. Copolymer showed effect on inhibiting smooth muscle cell growth comparing with unmodified chitosan. When PEG content changed only in the small range of 0--10%, the changes of both mechanical properties and cell interaction properties were already very significant.; 3 dynamic models addressing both receptor and ligand mobility, and various reaction geometries were developed. Model was validated with published data on interaction between lymphocytes and membrane-immobilized ligand proteins. Test results showed that the model is valid, and it is a new method for measuring rate constant of receptor-ligand reaction and diffusion coefficient of protein.