Physical Characterization of Diels-Alder Hyaluronic Acid Hydrogels with Variable Composition.

摘要

Hyaluronic acid (HA) is a well-documented and frequently used macromolecule in bioengineering. Some of the many reasons for its common use include the variety of different modifications possible from the backbone, its prevalence in the body, and its versatility to be used in in vitro and in vivo applications. Using a one-step Diels-Alder reaction, HA was modified with Furfurylamine and used to create a hydrogel composed of HA modified with furan rings (HA-furan) crosslinked with Poly ethylene glycol modified with malemide ((MI)2PEG). In order to create different gel conditions, molecular weight (MW) of the HA used in the HA-furan was varied at low and high MW. Additionally, the mass percent within the gel was varied by altering the concentration of crosslinker within the gel based on the ratio between the Furans available within the gel and the malemides found in the (MI) 2PEG. These variations created six different gel conditions, which showed that the physical properties such as swelling, stiffness, and degradation could be controlled and tuned based on the composition of the gel. The lessons learned from this study can be applied to creating and furthering the understanding of HA-furan gels and using them for in vitro cell studies.