Photosynthetic biomaterials: A pathway towards autotrophic tissue engineering

Towards autotrophic tissue engineering: Photosynthetic gene therapy for regeneration

“…In a next step, gene modified algae were seeded in clinically available scaffolds for dermal regeneration and the sustained release of photosynthetic oxygen and recombinant VEGF was evaluated in vitro. Similar to what we have previously described [14], when seeded at low concentrations, modified C. reinhardtii cells were able to proliferate within the biomaterial (Fig. 4A, B) and released substantial amounts of oxygen immediately upon light stimulation, reaching the saturation limit of the oxygen sensor after about 4 h (pO 2 !…”

“…In this approach, the green unicellular microalgae C. reinhardtii are incorporated into scaffolds and exposed to illumination to trigger photosynthesis and achieve oxygen production in situ. Moreover, we also demonstrated that C. reinhardtii microalgae did not induce a significant inflammatory response in two different species [14]. However, those previous results mainly evaluated the interaction of the innate immune system with the algae.…”

“…In our previous work, we showed that, after short periods of implantation, the use of scaffolds seeded with the microalgae C. reinhardtii, did not trigger a significant inflammatory response in an athymic immunodeficient nude mice model [14]. Here, as a further step to evaluate the safety of HULK in vivo, photosynthetic scaffolds for dermal regeneration were used to replace full-skin defects in fully immunocompetent mice [23] and the results were evaluated after fourteen days.…”

“…Recently, we have introduced HULK (from the German Hyperoxie Unter Licht Konditionierung) as a novel concept to deliver oxygen into biomaterials independently of blood vessel perfusion. The main idea behind the HULK approach is that, by incorporating photosynthetic microalgae such as Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (C. reinhardtii) into artificial constructs, the local induction of photosynthesis could be able to supply the metabolic needs of bioengineered tissues in vitro [13] and in vivo [14]. To take HULK one step forward, in this work we evaluated the feasibility of implanting photosynthetic scaffolds in fully immunocompetent mice.…”

Effect of in situ modification of bacterial cellulose with carboxymethylcellulose on its nano/microstructure and methotrexate release properties

“…The search for new biomaterials from green alternatives having specific properties has been the focus of many researchers worldwide, since they can be successfully explored for health purposes. In last decades, biomaterials have been intensively used for tissue engineering in order to replace or regenerate damaged tissues and their functions (Ribeiro, Sencadas, Correia, & Lanceros-Méndez, 2015;Schenck et al, 2014). Moreover, they are commonly used in the pharmaceutical field to design new controlled drug delivery systems (CDDS), which promote the temporal and/or spatial control of drug release rates (Goonoo, Jeetah, Luximon-Bhaw, & Jhurry, 2015;Kanamala, Wilson, Yang, Palmer, & Wu, 2016;Liu, Zhan, Wan, Wang, & Wang, 2015).…”