Chitosan-collagen thermosensitive hydrogels with tunable mechanical properties for cell therapy

摘要

These results confirm that the addition of chitosan to PureCol® strongly enhances its mechanical properties and enables to tune the mechanical properties as a function of the application. In the meantime, collagen addition enhanced cell viability in chitosan hydrogels, probably due to increased cell-matrix interactions. These results suggest that these new CH-Coll thermosensitive hydrogels present excellent properties as injectable scaffolds for cell therapy and tissue engineering. Further experiments with mesenchymal stem cells are in progress.