فهرست نشریات علمی دسترسی آزاد ایران

Background and objectives: The principal problem in the treating heart damages is the restricted ability of the heart to restore. Injectable hydrogels offer considerable potential for repairing cardiac tissue. According to the features of chitosan and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) in the cardiac repair, preparing a hydrogel that imitates the extracellular matrix (ECM) of the heart and is a new treatment for heart patients, especially heart infarction, the purpose of the current study is to design, fabrication and in-vitro specification of injectable chitosan/ PVA scaffold for heart tissue engineering. Materials and methods: The prepared hydrogel consisted of 2% natural chitosan and 5% synthetic PVA. The characteristics of the prepared hydrogel were assessed by experiments of gelation time, pH determination, microbial culture, biodegradability, swelling ratio, toxicity and microscopic evaluation of three-dimensional culture. Results: The evaluation of chitosan/PVA hydrogel experiments displayed that the gelation time was 7.66 ± 1.69 minutes and the pH measurement was 7.03 ± 0.12. The bacteria did not grow in the microbial culture. The degradability of hydrogel occurred after one week of immersion in PBS, which indicated its biocompatibility. The highest swelling was observed at 3 hours after immersion in PBS and then, the hydrogel started to lose water and shrank. The hydrogel was not toxic to adipose- derived mesenchymal stem cells (ADMSCs) and created a suitable three-dimensional structure for the growth and proliferation of ADMSCs and the cells maintained their attached and morphology. Conclusion: We demonstrated the development of biocompatible and injectable chitosan/ PVA hydrogel scaffold with high cellular compatibility, which along with other evaluations can use as a biomaterial in cardiac tissue engineering.