Journal
BIOMATERIALS
Volume 163, Issue -, Pages 89-104Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2018.02.016
Keywords
Sericin; Cartilage tissue engineering; Photo-crosslinking; Hydrogel
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [81402875, 81572866, 81671904]
- International Science and Technology Corporation Program of Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, China [2014DFA3290]
- Science and Technology Program of Chinese Ministry of Education, China [113044A]
- Frontier Exploration Program of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China [2015TS153]
- Natural Science Foundation Program of Hubei Province, China [2015CFA049]
- fund for the Integrated Innovative Team for Major Human Diseases Program of Tongji Medical College, HUST
- Hubei Hundreds of Talents Program
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Millions of patients worldwide suffer from cartilage injury and age/disease-related cartilage degeneration. However, cartilage, such as articular cartilage, is poor at self-regeneration. Current treatments are often invasive with limited efficacy. Developing minimal invasive strategies for effective cartilage repair is highly desired. Here, we report an injectable, photo-crosslinkable sericin hydrogel as a biomimetic extracellular matrix for minimal invasively repairing cartilage. Sericin was functionalized to be sericin methacryloyl (SerMA), which formed an in situ hydrogel upon UV light irradiation via photo-crosslinking. Possessing excellent biocompatibility, SerMA hydrogels were adhesive to chondrocytes, and promoted the proliferation of attached chondrocytes even in a nutrition-lacking condition. SerMA hydrogels exhibited photoluminescent property allowing real-time monitoring hydrogels' status. The mechanical properties and degradation rates (73% for SMH-1, 47% for SMH-2 and 37% for SMH-3 after 45 days) of SerMA hydrogels were readily tunable by varying methacryloyl modification degrees to meet various repair requirements. Notably, the in vivo implantation of chondrocyte-laden SerMA hydrogels effectively formed artificial cartilages after 8 weeks. Most importantly, the artificial cartilages molecularly resembled native cartilage as evidenced by high accumulation of cartilage-specific ECM components and upregulated expression of cartilage-critical genes. Together, this sericin hydrogel is a promising tissue engineering scaffold for generating artificial cartilage in vivo towards effective, minimal invasive cartilage repair. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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