TY - JOUR

T1 - Water-soluble photopolymerizable chitosan hydrogels for biofabrication via two-photon polymerization

AU - Kufelt, Olga

AU - El-Tamer, Ayman

AU - Sehring, Camilla

AU - Meißner, Marita

AU - Schlie-Wolter, Sabrina

AU - Chichkov, Boris N.

N1 - Funding information: This work was supported by the DFG excellence cluster REBIRTH “From Regenerative Biology to Reconstructive Therapy”, by the Low Saxony project “Biofabrication for NIFE” and by the BMBF project “REMEDIS”.

PY - 2015/3/6

Y1 - 2015/3/6

N2 - Fabrication of three-dimensional (3D) hydrogel microenvironments with predefined geometry and porosity can facilitate important requirements in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Chitosan (CH) is well known as a biocompatible hydrogel with prospective biological properties for biomedical aims. So far, microstructuring of this soft material presents a great limitation for its application as functional supporting material for guided tissue formation. Enabling photopolymerization, chemically modified CH can be applied for the biofabrication of reproducible 3D scaffolds using rapid prototyping techniques like two-photon polymerization (2PP) or others. The application of this technique allows precise serial fabrication of computer-designed microstructure geometries by scanning a femtosecond laser beam within a photosensitive material. This work explores a new synthesis of water-soluble photosensitive chitosan and the fabrication of well-defined microstructures from the generated materials. To modulate the mechanical and biochemical properties of the material, CH was combined and cross-linked with synthetic poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate. For a biological adaption to the in vivo situation, CH was covalently crosslinked with a photosensitive modified vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Performed in vitro studies reveal that modified CH is biocompatible. VEGF enhances CH bioactivity. Furthermore, a 3D CH scaffold can be successfully seeded with cells. Therefore, the established CH holds great promise for future applications in tissue engineering.

AB - Fabrication of three-dimensional (3D) hydrogel microenvironments with predefined geometry and porosity can facilitate important requirements in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Chitosan (CH) is well known as a biocompatible hydrogel with prospective biological properties for biomedical aims. So far, microstructuring of this soft material presents a great limitation for its application as functional supporting material for guided tissue formation. Enabling photopolymerization, chemically modified CH can be applied for the biofabrication of reproducible 3D scaffolds using rapid prototyping techniques like two-photon polymerization (2PP) or others. The application of this technique allows precise serial fabrication of computer-designed microstructure geometries by scanning a femtosecond laser beam within a photosensitive material. This work explores a new synthesis of water-soluble photosensitive chitosan and the fabrication of well-defined microstructures from the generated materials. To modulate the mechanical and biochemical properties of the material, CH was combined and cross-linked with synthetic poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate. For a biological adaption to the in vivo situation, CH was covalently crosslinked with a photosensitive modified vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Performed in vitro studies reveal that modified CH is biocompatible. VEGF enhances CH bioactivity. Furthermore, a 3D CH scaffold can be successfully seeded with cells. Therefore, the established CH holds great promise for future applications in tissue engineering.

KW - Chitosan

KW - Hydrogel

KW - Laser manufacturing

KW - Scaffold

KW - Two-photon polymerization

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84926994306&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.actbio.2015.02.025

DO - 10.1016/j.actbio.2015.02.025

M3 - Article

C2 - 25749294

AN - SCOPUS:84926994306

VL - 18

SP - 186

EP - 195

JO - Acta biomaterialia

JF - Acta biomaterialia

SN - 1742-7061

ER -