An injectable blend hydrogel for bone tissue engineering application: synthesis and characterization

Abstract

Injectable hydrogel provides an excellent substrate for bone tissue engineering (BTE) applications due to its water base, and capacity to encapsulate, manipulate, and easily reach to the adjacent tissue with minimal invasiveness. The purpose of the present study, is to develop an injectable hydrogel with a combination of chitosan, hyaluronic acid, and hydroxyapatite for enhanced bone regeneration and remodeling. Blend hydrogels have enough surface roughness and porosity that helps to attach bone cells. Hydrogel synthesis was confirmed with XRD, FTIR, EDX and TGA characterization. These hydrogels demonstrated adequate swelling and mechanical properties for its use in BTE applications. These hydrogels have the acceptable range of mechanical strength required for injectable hydrogels for bone regeneration. The synthesized hydrogel showed enough range of percolation capacity needed for the permeability of medicine, growth factors, and nutritional molecules. All these findings suggest the use of synthesized hydrogels for bone regeneration in biomedical engineering applications.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

Keywords:

• bone tissue engineering
• chitosan
• hyaluronic acid
• hydroxyapatite
• injectable hydrogel

Acknowledgements

One of the authors, Sarita, is grateful to the director of MNNIT Allahabad for financial and infrastructural support. The authors are thankful to the center for interdisciplinary research, MNNIT Allahabad for PXRD, MNIT Jaipur for FT-IR facilities, IIT Delhi for rheology studies, SAIF Chandigarh for EDX and SEM analysis, and MNNIT Allahabad Strength of Material Laboratory for mechanical testing.

Disclosure statement

We assert no potential of interest.