from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
Physical crosslinking of water-soluble polymers is a promising route for creating highly pure and biocompatible hydrogel scaffolds, offering an advantage over methods that use potentially cytotoxic chemical reagents. This study investigated the effectiveness of heat treatment and β-electron irradiation for the physical crosslinking of electrospun nanofibrous scaffolds / hydrogel disks derived from synthetic polymer - polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and natural polymer - gelatin (GEL), focusing on material stability and cytocompatibility. PVA and GEL samples were fabricated and subsequently subjected to either heat treatment or β-electron irradiation before being characterized for morphology, water-solubility, and cytotoxicity (ISO 10993). Both physical methods were found not to significantly alter the nanofiber morphology. Crucially, β-electron irradiation failed to crosslink dry samples, which immediately dissolved, revealing that the presence of water is essential for this crosslinking mechanism. Biologically, physically crosslinked GEL nanofibers demonstrated excellent cell viability, while irradiated PVA nanofibers exhibited unexpected cytotoxicity. Otherwise, cell proliferation with PVA samples was unaffected, compared to GEL samples. Cell adhesion assays were inconclusive and require further investigation. These findings highlight that while physically crosslinked water-soluble polymers are good scaffold candidates, optimizing irradiation conditions, particularly by ensuring proper hydration, is critical for developing stable and functional scaffolds for tissue engineering applications.
Keywords: Polyvinyl alcohol, gelatin, water-soluble polymers, physical crosslinking© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.