Crosslinking of hybrid scaffolds produced from collagen and chitosan

The development of biodegradable scaffolds able to support cell growth has recently become of great importance. Therefore, the main objective of this work was the development of hybrid scaffolds made from the mixture of two biopolymers (collagen and chitosan) and the comparison of the effect of glutaraldehyde as crosslinking agent with three different crosslinking methods (chemical: genipin; physical: temperature and enzymatic: transglutaminase) in order to look for a promising candidate to substitute it. To achieve this purpose, the mechanical properties, structure, porosity, degree of crosslinking and swelling of the different scaffolds were assessed. The best ratio of biopolymers (collagen:chitosan) to form hybrid scaffolds was 1:1, which improve their mechanical and morphological properties compared to unitary scaffolds (only collagen or chitosan). In addition, the incorporation of 10% w/w transglutaminase (crosslinking agent) with respect to the mass of biopolymers made these scaffolds a good structure for the growth and proliferation of cells.