Tailoring Mechanical Properties of Collagen-Based Scaffolds for Vascular Tissue Engineering: The Effects of pH, Temperature and Ionic Strength on Gelation

By Matteo Achilli, D. Mantovani. 2010

220 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Collagen gels have been widely studied for applications in tissue engineering because of their biological implications. Considering their use as scaffolds for vascular tissue engineering, the main limitation has always been related to their low mechanical properties. During the process of in vitro self-assembly, which leads to collagen gelation, the size of the fibrils, their chemical interactions, as well as the resulting microstructure are regulated by three main experimental conditions: pH, ionic strength and temperature. In this work, these three parameters were modulated in order to increase the mechanical properties of collagen gels. The effects on the gelation process were assessed by turbidimetric and scanning electron microscopy analyses. Turbidity measurements showed that gelation was affected by all three factors and scanning electron images confirmed that major changes occurred at the microstructural level. Mechanical tests showed that the compressive and tensile moduli increased by four- and three-fold, respectively, compared to the control. Finally, viability tests confirmed that these gels are suitable as scaffolds for cellular adhesion and proliferation.

Subfields: Biomaterials, Biomedical Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8a76a9f4323a8aa3b665a5d977bbe538d7923a18

Citations in the corpus

• Current advances and future perspectives in extrusion-based bioprinting. (2016, unknown): “Collagen type I has been used extensively in tissue engineering as a growth substrate for 3D cell culture or as a scaffold material for cellular therapies [125].”