Gellan gum: a new biomaterial for cartilage tissue engineering applications

Abstract: Gellan gum is a polysaccharide manufactured by microbial fermentation of the Sphingomonas paucimobilis microorganism, being commonly used in the food and pharmaceutical industry. It can be dissolved in water, and when heated and mixed with mono or divalent cations, forms a gel upon lowering the temperature under mild conditions. In this work, gellan gum hydrogels were analyzed as cells supports in the context of cartilage regen-eration. Gellan gum hydrogel discs were characterized in terms of mechanical and structural properties. Transmission electron microscopy revealed a quite homo-geneous chain arrangement within the hydrogels matrix, and dynamic mechanical analysis allowed to characterize the hydrogels discs viscoelastic properties upon compres-sion solicitation, being the compressive storage and los