Immobilization of gelatin on bacterial cellulose nanofibers surface via crosslinking technique

Bacterial cellulose is considered to be a potential material for tissue engineering. However, the absence of enough activity restricts its practical application as tissue engineering scaffold. This paper describes the synthesis of a novel bacterial cellulose/gelatin composite via crosslinking by procyanidin (PA). The morphology of the bacterial cellulose/gelatin composite was observed by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and transmission electronic microscope (TEM). The composites were further characterized by fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). It was found that the 0.25 wt.% Gel solution was the appropriate concentration for the BC/Gel composite. Furthermore, the proliferation, infiltration and adhesion of NIH3T3 cells on the BC/Gel-025 composite were evaluated. The results showed that the composite had better bioactivity than pure bacterial cellulose, and the composite supported cell growth. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.