Levan based biodegradable hydrogel

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A sticky carbohydrate meets a mussel adhesive: Catechol-conjugated levan for hemostatic and wound healing applications

The stickiest natural polysaccharide, levan, plays a role in metalloproteinase activation, which is an important step involved in the healing of injured tissue. However, levan is easily diluted, washed away, and loses adhesion in wet environments, which limits its biomedical applications. Herein, we demonstrate a strategy for fabricating a levan-based adhesive hydrogel for hemostatic and tissue adhesion applications by conjugating catechol to levan. Prepared hydrogels exhibit significantly improved water solubilities, and adhesion strengths to hydrated porcine skin of up to 42.17 ± 0.24 kPa which is more than three-times that of fibrin glue adhesive. The hydrogels also promote rapid blood clotting and significantly faster healing of rat-skin incisions compared to nontreated samples. In addition, levan-catechol exhibited an immune response close to that of the negative control, which is ascribable to its significantly lower endotoxin level compared to native levan. Overall, levan-catechol hydrogels are promising materials for hemostatic and tissue-adhesion applications.11Nsciescopu

Production of the biomimetic small diameter blood vessels for cardiovascular tissue engineering

A novel biomimetic vascular graft scaffolds were produced by electrospinning method with the most superior characteristics to be a proper biomimetic small diameter blood vessel using Polycaprolactone(PCL), Ethyl Cellulose(EC) and Collagen Type-1 were used to create the most convenient synergy of a natural and synthetic polymer to achieve similarity to native small diameter blood vessels. Scanning Electron Microscopy(SEM), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy(FTIR), Differential Scanning Calorimetry Analysis(DSC), tensile measurement tests, and in-vitro and in-vivo applications were performed. Results indicated significant properties such as having 39.33 nm minimum, 104.98 nm average fiber diameter, 3.2 MPa young modulus and 135% relative cell viability