Polyvinyl Alcohol/Chitosan and Polyvinyl Alcohol/Ag@MOF Bilayer Hydrogel for Tissue Engineering Applications

Polymers (Basel). 2021 Sep 17;13(18):3151. doi: 10.3390/polym13183151.

Abstract

In this paper, polyvinyl alcohol/Ag-Metal-organic framework (PVA/Ag@MOF) and polyvinyl alcohol/chitosan (PVA/CS) were used as the inner and outer layers to successfully prepare a bilayer composite hydrogel for tissue engineering scaffold. The performance of bilayer hydrogels was evaluated. The outer layer (PVA/CS) has a uniform pore size distribution, good water retention, biocompatibility and cell adhesion ability. The inner layer (PVA/Ag@MOF) has good antibacterial activity and poor biocompatibility. PVA, PVA/0.1%Ag@MOF, PVA/0.5%Ag@MOF, and PVA/1.0%Ag@MOF show anti-microbial activity in ascending order. However, its use as an inner layer avoids direct contact with cells and prevents infection. The cell viability of all samples was above 90%, indicating that the bilayer hydrogel was non-toxic to A549 cells. The bilayer hydrogel scaffold combines the advantages of the inner and outer layers. In summary, this new bilayer composite is an ideal lung scaffold for tissue engineering.

Keywords: Ag-Metal-organic framework; antibacterial activity; cytotoxicity; polyvinyl alcohol.