Mussel-inspired agarose hydrogel scaffolds for skin tissue engineering

Ting Su; Mengying Zhang; Qiankun Zeng; Wenhao Pan; Yijing Huang; Yuna Qian; Wei Dong; Xiaoliang Qi; Jianliang Shen

doi:10.1016/j.bioactmat.2020.09.004

Mussel-inspired agarose hydrogel scaffolds for skin tissue engineering

Bioact Mater. 2020 Sep 17;6(3):579-588. doi: 10.1016/j.bioactmat.2020.09.004. eCollection 2021 Mar.

Authors

Ting Su^{1

2

3

4}, Mengying Zhang², Qiankun Zeng², Wenhao Pan^{1

2}, Yijing Huang⁴, Yuna Qian², Wei Dong⁴, Xiaoliang Qi^{1

2}, Jianliang Shen^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology, Optometry and Vision Science, School of Ophthalmology and Optometry, School of Biomedical Engineering, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, 325027, China.
² Engineering Research Center of Clinical Functional Materials and Diagnosis & Treatment Devices of Zhejiang Province, Wenzhou Institute, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wenzhou, 325001, China.
³ School of Chemistry & Materials Engineering, Fuyang Normal University, Fuyang, 236037, China.
⁴ School of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science & Technology, Nanjing, 210094, China.

Abstract

Polysaccharide hydrogels are widely used in tissue engineering because of their superior biocompatibility and low immunogenicity. However, many of these hydrogels are unrealistic for practical applications as the cost of raw materials is high, and the fabrication steps are tedious. This study focuses on the facile fabrication and optimization of agarose-polydopamine hydrogel (APG) scaffolds for skin wound healing. The first study objective was to evaluate the effects of polydopamine (PDA) on the mechanical properties, water holding capacity and cell adhesiveness of APG. We observed that APG showed decreased rigidity and increased water content with the addition of PDA. Most importantly, decreased rigidity translated into significant increase in cell adhesiveness. Next, the slow biodegradability and high biocompatibility of APG with the highest PDA content (APG3) was confirmed. In addition, APG3 promoted full-thickness skin defect healing by accelerating collagen deposition and promoting angiogenesis. Altogether, we have developed a straightforward and efficient strategy to construct functional APG scaffold for skin tissue engineering, which has translation potentials in clinical practice.

Keywords: Agarose; Cell adhesion; Hydrogel; Polydopamine; Tissue engineering.