Injuries in load-bearing soft tissues (LBSTs) such as the nucleus pulposus or knee meniscus affect a wide demographic and are caused by physical activities, infection, or natural aging. Regeneration of these tissues is limited by blood supply and the cell count. Tissue engineered solutions are needed to explore the possibility to regenerate or remodel damaged LBSTs. Successful tissue engineered solutions must be both biocompatible and provide sufficient mechanical support. Synthetic hydrogels with sufficient mechanical strength can be produced, but they tend to have poor biocompatibility which limits cell proliferation; conversely, natural hydrogels lack mechanical strength but are biocompatible. In this work a composite scaffold with distinct natural and synthetic hydrogels was produced to achieve both of these properties. Beads of 2% sodium alginate (a natural hydrogel) were added to a 10% polyvinyl alcohol (PVA, a synthetic hydrogel) solution. The solution was then subjected to freeze-thaw cycles to physically crosslink the PVA. In response to the changes in freeze-thaw cycling conditions, the change in compressive strength was analyzed. Chondrocytes were isolated from bovine articular cartilage and were seeded in the PVA/alginate scaffolds to study cell viability. A compressive modulus of 64.42 kPa was achieved after subjecting the scaffolds to 10 freeze-thaw cycles. Live/dead cell analysis of the cells seeded in the scaffold over a 1-month period showed strong cell viability and proliferation (Fig. 1). These findings suggest that this scaffold could be promising in the treatment of LBST injury.

In vitro assessment of composite hydrogel materials for the regeneration of load-bearing soft tissues

ACS Fall 2021

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