Nanodiamond enhanced mechanical and biological properties of extrudable gelatin hydrogel cross-linked with tannic acid and ferrous sulphate

Abstract

Background The requirements for cell-encapsulated injectable and bioprintable hydrogels are extrusion ability, cell supportive micro-environment and reasonable post-printing stability for the acclimatization of the cells in the target site. Detonation nanodiamond (ND) has shown its potential to improve the mechanical and biological properties of such hydrogels. Enhancing the performance properties of natural biopolymer gelatin-based hydrogels can widen their biomedical application possibilities to various areas including drug delivery, tissue engineering and 3D bioprinting. Method In this study, natural cross-linker tannic acid (TA) is used along with ferrous sulphate (FS) to optimize the swelling and disintegration of extrudable and 3D printable gelatin hydrogels. The amounts of TA and FS are restricted to improve the extrusion ability of the gels in 3D printing. Further, ND particles (detonation type) are dispersed using twin screw extrusion technology to study their effect on mechanical and biological properties of the 3D printing hydrogel. Results The improved dispersion of ND particles helps to improve compressive strength almost ten times and dynamic modulus three times using 40 mg ND (2% w/w of gelatin). The surface-functional groups of detonation ND also contributed for such improvement in mechanical properties due to higher interaction with the hydrogel matrix. The stability of the hydrogels in water was also improved to 7 days. Four times improvement of the cell growth and proliferation was observed in ND based hydrogel. Conclusion The cell-supportive nature of these moderately stable and extrudable ND dispersed gelatin hydrogels makes them a good candidate for short term regenerative applications of cell-encapsulated injectable hydrogels with better mechanical properties.

Modulation of bioactive calcium phosphate micro/nanoparticle size and shape during in situ synthesis of photo-crosslinkable gelatin methacryloyl based nanocomposite hydrogels for 3D bioprinting and tissue engineering

“…2 ) revealed biocompatible nature of all cross-linked hydrogel samples including the synthesized nanoparticle (CNP). Initially the samples with CNP showed less growth, however, within day 3, all samples showed more than 70% cell viability which is considered biocompatible [ 43 ]. However, separate mixing with nanoparticles leads to non-uniformity in bioactive nanoparticles distribution in the hydrogel matrix.…”

Are Natural Compounds a Promising Alternative to Synthetic Cross-Linking Agents in the Preparation of Hydrogels?

“…Bhattacharyya et al [ 180 ] described a gelatin hydrogel that was cross-linked with a 2.5% ( w / v ) tannic acid solution and used together with ferrous sulphate that was characterised by a porous structure. The degree of swelling of the hydrogels reached approx.…”

Synthesis of novel antibacterial and biocompatible polymer nanocomposite based on polysaccharide gum hydrogels

“…Hydrogels have been widely used in non-biomedical applications such as catalysis 2 and biomedical applications such as wound healing 3 , tissue engineering 4 , protein and gene delivery 5 , 6 , and drug delivery 7 due to their swelling capacity, water and cargo absorbing ability, adjustable mechanical properties and mesoporous structure with tunable physicochemical properties. Hydrogels are created when cross-linked bonds are formed between two polymeric chains which could be equal or not equal 8 . These polymeric chains can have either natural or synthetic sources.…”