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Abstract
Porous scaffolds for skin tissue engineering were fabricated by freeze-drying the
mixture of collagen and chitosan solutions. Glutaraldehyde (GA) was used to treat
the scaffolds to improve their biostability. Confocal laser scanning microscopy observation
confirmed the even distribution of these two constituent materials in the scaffold.
The GA concentrations have a slight effect on the cross-section morphology and the
swelling ratios of the cross-linked scaffolds. The collagenase digestion test proved
that the presence of chitosan can obviously improve the biostability of the collagen/chitosan
scaffold under the GA treatment, where chitosan might function as a cross-linking
bridge. A detail investigation found that a steady increase of the biostability of
the collagen/chitosan scaffold was achieved when GA concentration was lower than 0.1%,
then was less influenced at a still higher GA concentration up to 0.25%. In vitro
culture of human dermal fibroblasts proved that the GA-treated scaffold could retain
the original good cytocompatibility of collagen to effectively accelerate cell infiltration
and proliferation. In vivo animal tests further revealed that the scaffold could sufficiently
support and accelerate the fibroblasts infiltration from the surrounding tissue. Immunohistochemistry
analysis of the scaffold embedded for 28 days indicated that the biodegradation of
the 0.25% GA-treated scaffold is a long-term process. All these results suggest that
collagen/chitosan scaffold cross-linked by GA is a potential candidate for dermal
equivalent with enhanced biostability and good biocompatibility.