Biocompatibility of polyfumarate-chitosan based scaffolds for cartilage tissue engineering

M. L. LASTRA; M. S. MOLINUEVO; M. S. CORTIZO

Buenos Aires

Conferencia; VI International Conference on Science and Technology of Composite Materials; 2015

Tissue engineering is an interdisciplinary area of research to provide substitutes to allow tissue regeneration. We have previously studied fumarate derived polymers for bone tissue engineering. The fumarate homopolymer alone presents low biocompatibility and it is too brittle to be used for bone regeneration applications. In an attempt to improve their mechanical and biological properties we have prepared polyesters-fumarate-based blends. In the present work diisopropyl fumarate-vinyl acetate copolymer was synthesized and crosslinked by chitosan in order to obtain a new material for scaffold preparation. The objective was to study the swelling, stability and mechanical properties of the scaffolds as well as evaluate the chondrocyte proliferation and its extracellular matrix production for cartilage tissue engineering. We found that the designed scaffolds behave as hydrogels with a good stability and good chondrocyte proliferation and cartilage extracellular matrix production.