Hydrogels Containing Marine Polysaccharides For Bone and Cartilage Tissue Engineering

Introduction: The most common biopolymers used to build-up 3D scaffolds for bone and cartilage tissue engineering are chitosan, alginate, cellulose derivatives, hyaluronic acid, chondroitin sulfate, collagen and gelatin. In this study, we propose to evaluate the potential of two new marine exopolysaccharides (HE800 and GY785) that are glycosaminoglycan-like polymers and that can be produced in large scale by marine bacteria without non-conventional transmissible agent. HE800 is an analogue of hyaluronic acid, and GY785 is a 3% sulfated complex branched nonasaccharide which has no known analogue. To achieve our goal, we chose to incorporate these polymers into a well-known cellulose-based hydrogel developed in our laboratory as a calcium phosphate carrier and as a scaffold for cartilage tissue engineering. Due to the chemical structure of HE800 and GY785, we assumed that they would be likely to enhance the mechanical property of our cellulose-based hydrogel and to have a key role in cell adhesion and proliferation by interacting with bioactive molecules such as growth factors. That is what we have checked out working with osteoblastic (MC3T3) and chondrogenic (C28/I2) cell lines.