Preparation and characterization of a novel chitosan scaffold

In this paper, a series of porous chitosan scaffolds were successfully prepared by freeze-drying of chitosan hydrogel (pre-gelled with dibasic sodium phosphate at 37 °C). Micro-structure, porosity, water adsorption and compressive strength were greatly affected by chitosan concentration. With the decrease of chitosan concentration, water adsorption and porosity of scaffold increased accordingly, while compressive strength of scaffold decreased. In vitro degradation test revealed that the chitosan scaffold was almost degraded by the lysozyme solution (1.5 μg/ml) after 28 day’s incubation. In vitro cytotoxicity test showed the prepared chitosan scaffolds were non-cytotoxicity against NIH3T3 cell. The cell viability as in function with time with acridine orange (AO) staining also demonstrated that NIH3T3 cell were metabolically active and well distributed throughout the scaffold after 5 day’s incubation. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) also showed that NIH3T3 cell appeared to adhere well and exhibited a normal morphology on the surface of scaffold after 24 h cell culture.