Natural soft tissues such as cartilage, tendon, and ligament have well-ordered hierarchical structures, which are crucial for their mechanical and biological functions. Inspired by the aligned fibrous structure, an anisotropic chitosan hybrid hydrogel (ACHH) is developed by combining the oriented chitosan nanofibers with the ductile polyacrylamide network. The resulting ACHH demonstrates outstanding mechanical properties: tensile strength and elastic modulus up to 25.6 and 218.2 MPa, which are comparable to those of natural cartilage and ligament. In addition, the ACHH also exhibits excellent biocompatibility and can promote the adhesion and proliferation of myoblasts. This work offers a facile method to fabricate an anisotropic, strong, and biocompatible chitosan-based hydrogel for potential biomaterials and tissue-engineering applications.
Keywords: anisotropic hydrogel; biocompatible; chitosan; oriented nanofibers; prestretching.