Characterization of commercial and algae (undaria pinnatifida) extracted sodium alginate for future application in bone tissue engineering

TORRES ML; CORTIZO AM; OBERTI T; FERNANDEZ JM

Congreso; IX Congreso Latinoamericano de Órganos Artificiales y Biomateriales, COLAOB 2016; 2016

Alginate is a natural, water-soluble, polysaccharide obtained from brown algae. Due to many attractive features such as good biocompatibility, low toxicity as well as ease of hydrogel formation with divalent cations, it has been widely used in a variety of biomedical application. The brown algae, Undaria pinnatifida, native from Japan, China and Korea is a powerful invasive species which was introduced worldwide in different coasts, including the one of Puerto Madryn (Argentina). Sodium alginate was obtained from this seaweed and the first aim of the extraction process was to convert the insoluble calcium salt into sodium alginate. In this study we compare extracted sodium alginate from U. pinnatifida from two different parts of the seaweed: stem and leaf, with the commercial salt. We characterized the samples using a Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), a Thermogravimetric Analisys (TGA), capillary viscosity and a cytotoxicity assay to detect a possible immune response.