Preparation And Characterization Of Fish Gelatin/Galactosylated Chitosan Hydrogel Scaffold For Liver Tissue Engeering

The construction of tissue engineering scaffolds requires modeling the natural extracellular matrix as much as possible.It is known that the asialoglycoprotein receptors on the hepatocyte membrane can specifically recognize and bind galactose residues,and thus researchers have became more interested in the galactosylated materials such as galactosylated chitosan(GC)which is useful in the construction of liver target drug carriers or liver tissue engineering scaffolds.Fish gelatin is a kind of natural protein biological material with wide sources and excellent properties,it can be used to simulate with natural polysaccharide such as chitosan to obtain the composition of extracellular matrix in combination.Hydrogels are three-dimensional network polymer which capable of swelling in water and maintaining a large amount of water without dissolving.They exhibit outstanding elasticity,good biocompatibility and can be modeled the structure of natural extracellular matrix on a certain degree.Based on the above understanding,in this study,we try to fabricate fish gelatin /galactosylated chitosan(FG/GC)composite hydrogel scaffold and evaluate its potential application in liver tissue engineering.The main research contents and experimental results are as follows: 1)Preparation and characterization of galactosylated chitosan.The chitosan was modified by lactobionic acid and the obtained product was proved by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy(FTIR).The further analysis showed that the water solubility of the product was better than that of chitosan;2)Preparation and optimization of fish gelatin / galactosylated chitosan composite hydrogel scaffold.The fish gelatin / galactosylated chitosan composite hydrogel scaffold was obtained by glutathione as a crosslinking agent though Schiff base reaction.The results showed that when the concentration of GC is 4%,the concentration of FG is 30%,the ratio of GC,FG and 1% glutaraldehyde was 3: 3: 1,the physical properties of the prepared composite hydrogel were better,the compressive modulus of the hydrogel which with good elasticity can reach 0.035 MPa and the degradation performance is more suitable to the cell and tissue regeneration requirements compared to the single component hydrogel;3)Evaluation the cell compatibility of the fish gelatin / galactosylated chitosan composite hydrogel scaffolds.Invitro cell experiments showed that L929 cells and human hepatoma cells(Hep G2)had good growth and proliferation behavior on the surface of fish gelatin / galactosylated chitosan complex hydrogel,which was significantly better than that of culture plate control group,it suggesting that the fish gelatin / galactosylated chitosan composite hydrogel scaffold is expected to be well used in liver tissue engineering.