THE USE OF A NOVEL ALDEHYDE-FUNCTIONALIZED CHITOSAN HYDROGEL TO PREPARE POROUS TUBULAR SCAFFOLDS FOR VASCULAR TISSUE ENGINEERING APPLICATIONS

In this work, porous tubular scaffolds were prepared from a novel water soluble aldehyde-functionalized chitosan (ALDCHIT) hydrogel, which was obtained by dissolving this chitosan derivative in water and using oxidized dextrose (OXDEXT) as the crosslinking agent at different ALDCHIT:OXDEXT mole ratios (10:1, 10:2 and 10:4). By increasing the amount of OXDEXT in respect to ALDCHIT the hydrogels became more rigid and could absorb more than 200% of its weight in water. Since the ALDCHIT:OXDEXT 10:4 was the most stable hydrogel, its ability to form porous tubular scaffolds was investigated. The tubular scaffolds were prepared by the lyophilization method, where the orientation of the pores was controlled by exposing either the internal or the external surface of the frozen hydrogel during the sublimation step. When only the inner surface of the frozen hydrogel was exposed, tubular scaffolds with a highly porous lumen and a sealed outer surface were obtained, where the orientation of the pores, their sizes and interconnectivity seem to be optimum for vascular tissue engineering application