In situ crosslinkable elastomeric hydrogel for long-term cell encapsulation for cardiac applications

The regenerative therapy of tissues relays on successful cell transplantation and engraftment. Soft hydrogel carriers are employed to protect transplanted cells from harmful microenvironment in soft tissue regeneration. Herein an injectable, porous, biodegradable, bioresorbable, and elastomeric hydrogel fabricated from poly(propylene fumarate-co-sebacate-co-ethylene glycol) crosslinked with PEGDA for cardiomyoblast encapsulation was reported. The hydrogel retains adequate mechanical property in the range of native myocardium even after 30 days of degradation (49 ± 0.008 kPa). The hydrogel shows maximum extensibility without collapsing even under 60% compression. The hydrogel retains 70.58% equilibrium water content, wide internal porosity, and slow bulk degradation favorable for cell carriers. The cardiomyoblast cells encapsulated in hydrogel retains viability even after 30 days of culture. The long-term viability and proliferation studies of encapsulated cells in the hydrogel substantiate the suitability of hydrogel microenvironment for cell survival. The present hydrogel is a potential cell carrier with favorable physical and biological properties for cell encapsulation for cardiac applications. The candidate hydrogels perform better than the other reported elastomeric hydrogels fabricated for cell therapy. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part A: 104A: 2936-2944, 2016.