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Updated: Jul 12, 2026
Synthesis of Thermogelling Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)-graft-chondroitin Sulfate Composites with Alginate Microparticles for Tissue Engineering
Published on: October 26, 2016
[Porous polyvinyl alcohol hydrogel composite prepared and studied initially for biocompatibility]
Jia-qi Wu1, Yang Liu, Tian-fu Yang
1Department of Orthopaedics, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China.
Objective:
To investigate the feasibility of porous polyvinyl alcohol hydrogel (PVA-H) composite, for tissue engineering scaffold.
Methods:
The approach of emulsifier-foaming, freeze-drying and surfactant-cleaning method was developed to gain three kinds of porous scaffolds: porous polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), porous polyvinyl alcohol/nano-hydroxyapatite (PVA/n-HA) and porous polyvinyl alcohol/chitosan (PVA/Cs). We checked the physical features of the above three kinds of materials and further investigated their biocompatibility by SEM image analysis, mechanics test, MTT and muscle implanting.
Results:
Three kinds of materials had the similar character of high porosity (80%), but the PVA/n-HA had the smallest mean pore size (154.5 microm) and the PVA had the biggest tensile strength (0.60 Mpa). MTT assay demonstrated three kinds of materials to have no toxicity, furthermore, PVA had better absorbance, compared with cell control group (P < 0.05). After muscle implantation, there were many muscular tissues growing into pores of PVA/Cs at the 4th week, although PVA/Cs had stronger inflammatory reaction. Other two kinds of materials had very small inflammatory reaction and there were many fibrous tissues growing into pores at the 1st, 4th, 12th week.
Conclusion:
The features of materials are changed after adding n-HA or Cs, moreover, porous PVA/Cs seems to have the activity of inducing muscle growth. Porous PVA and its composites may be applied to tissue engineering as a long-term or permanent scaffold due to their good biocompatibility, elasticity and hydrophilicity.
