Fabrication and physicochemical properties of pectin/chitosan scaffolds

Scaffolds from chitosan and its combinations with other polymers are widely used for tissue engineering application. This is due to the favourable biological properties of chitosan such as antimicrobial activity, biocompatibility, biodegradability, cell adhesion and proliferation, etc. The aim of the study was the creation of 3D porous scaffolds based on pectin/chitosan polyelectrolyte complexes and study the influence of components ratio on their physico-chemical properties, as well as degradation behaviour in solutions modelling the media of the human body. Porous “sponge-like” polysaccharide films were produced using freeze-drying technique from gel-like pectin-chitosan polyelectrolyte complexes. The weight ratio of chitosan:pectin in complexes was varied in the range from 1:1 to 1:2. Obtained samples were characterized by infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy. It has been shown that pectin-chitosan films turned out to have sponge-like structure with highly interconnected pores with the size about 50-300 μm. It has been determined that all samples regardless of the chitosan:pectin ratio possess high swelling properties. The degradation profile of scaffolds in different media was studied. It has been determined that the largest weight loss is observed in water and reaches more than 80% after 1 day, while in NaCl and PBS solutions weight loss is approximately 50-60% after 25 days. For samples with different chitosan:pectin weight ratio, weight loss slightly rise with increasing amount of pectin. It has been shown that mesenchymal stem cells adhered to the surface of obtained pectin:chitosan porous scaffolds in viable state. Hence, it can be served as a potential material for tissue engineering applications.

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Opracowanie rekordu w ramach umowy 509/P-DUN/2018 ze środków MNiSW przeznaczonych na działalność upowszechniającą naukę (2018).