Alginate and chitosan polyion complex hybrid fibers for scaffolds in ligament and tendon tissue engineering

Selecting the material for a scaffold is critically important for the success of tissue engineering. To simplify complicated biosynthetic matrices and achieve a novel class of potential materials, a model of polyion complex fibers was prepared from alginate and chitosan. In the current in vitro study, we thought that alginate-based chitosan hybrid biomaterials could provide excellent supports for fibroblast adhesion. In the current study, alginate polymer fiber (alginate group) and alginate-based chitosan hybrid polymer fibers (alginate with 0.05% chitosan, alginate-chitosan 0.05% group; alginate with 0.1% chitosan, alginate-chitosan 0.1% group) were originally prepared. We investigated the adhesion behavior of rabbit tendon fibroblast onto alginate polymer fibers versus the adhesion of the fibroblast onto alginate-based chitosan hybrid polymer fibers. Furthermore, mechanical properties and synthesis of the extracellular matrix were investigated. Mechanically, the novel fiber has considerable tensile strength of more than 200 MPa. We demonstrated that the alginate-based chitosan hybrid polymer fibers showed much improved adhesion capacity with fibroblast compared with alginate polymer fiber. Additionally, morphologic studies revealed the dense fiber of the type I collagen produced by the fibroblast in the hybrid polymer fibers. We concluded that an alginate-based chitosan hybrid polymer fiber has considerable potential as a desirable biomaterial scaffold for tendon and ligament tissue engineering.