Preparation of interconnected porous chitosan scaffolds by sodium acetate particulate leaching

For tissue-engineering applications, a 3D porous chitosan scaffold was simply prepared from a mixture of acidic chitosan solution and sodium acetate particles as the porogen by a salt-leaching method. Differences in the porous structure in terms of pore morphology and interconnectivity between the salt-leached chitosan scaffold and phase-separated scaffold as the control were examined by using scanning electron microscopy, protein release and enzymatic degradation tests. A fibroblast (NIH-3T3) cell culture was performed for cell affinity evaluation. The chitosan scaffold prepared by salt-leaching showed good interconnectivity and improved mechanical properties. Furthermore, the chitosan scaffolds showed a high initial cell adhesion after 4 h cell culture and increased cell proliferation than the control. Thus, salt-leached chitosan scaffolds can be used for various tissue-engineering applications.