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Study of the cell responses in tantalum carbide nanoparticles-enriched polysaccharide composite hydrogel
Xinyu Hu1, Yongmei Wang2, Man Xu2
1Key Lab. of Biomass Energy and Material, Jiangsu Province, Institute of Chemical Industry of Forestry Products, CAF, Nanjing 210042, China; Co-Innovation Center of Efficient Processing and Utilization of Forest Resources, Jiangsu Province, Nanjing 210042, China; Key Lab. of Chemical Engineering of Forest Products, National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Beijing 100714, China; National Engineering Lab. for Biomass Chemical Utilization, Nanjing 210042, China.
Abstract:
Salecan is a linear microbial polysaccharide obtained from the fermentation of Agrobacterium sp. ZX09. Salecan is suitable for the preparation of hydrogels for biomedical applications, given its prominent physicochemical and biological properties. Herein, we described a novel microwave-assisted polymerized composite hydrogel that was comprised of salecan/poly(diacetone acrylamide) (PDAAm) network and tantalum carbide (TaC) nanoparticles. The incorporation of TaC nanoparticles into the composite hydrogels was confirmed by XRD and EDX analysis, and can be engineered as means for structural reinforcement, thus leading to a remarkable improvement in their thermal stability and mechanical properties. Compared to bare salecan/PDAAm hydrogel, >9.3-fold increase in compressive modulus and 7-fold increase in storage modulus were achieved with the addition of 3 mL of TaC nanoparticles dispersion (5%, w/v). More importantly, cytotoxicity results revealed that the composite hydrogels were non-toxic to L929 and 3T3-L1 cells. Cell proliferation and Live/Dead staining demonstrated that salecan/PDAAm/TaC composite hydrogels provided a desired environment for cell adhesion, and allowed proliferation at the normal rate. All the results highlight the value of this system for potential application as cell adhesion material.