• Bastani, Saeed
• Kandeloos, A. Jalali

Abstract

<jats:p> In this study, biodegradable oxidized methacrylated alginate (OMA) hydrogels with controllable mechanical properties were engineered. An ionic and photo cross-linking combination was employed to fabricate dual cross-linked hydrogels. By altering the degree of methacrylation and polymer concentration, hydrogels with an elastic modulus of 4.85 ± 0.13 to 21.02 ± 0.91 kPa, controllable swelling, and degradation kinetics, and cross-link density in the range of 1.0 × 10<jats:sup>−5</jats:sup> to 6.5 × 10<jats:sup>−5</jats:sup> mol/cm<jats:sup>3</jats:sup> were obtained. Moreover, evaluating the effect of cross-linking sequence on the hydrogels’ mechanical properties demonstrated that in comparison to the hydrogels fabricated by ionic cross-linking followed by photo-polymerization, hydrogels produced by photo-polymerization followed by ionic cross-linking retain a stiffer gel network with more compact structure. Cytocompatibility examination was performed via MTT assay against L929 fibroblasts, and all the hydrogel samples demonstrated high cell viability (&gt;80%). The findings demonstrate the significant effect of the sequence of cross-linking as a novel tool to tune the OMA hydrogel’s final properties which can serve as a useful platform for tissue engineering applications. </jats:p>

Topics

• density
• polymer