Silk Fibroin Chitosan And HTCC Composite Scaffolds For Articular Cartilage Tissue Engineering: An Experimental Study

Silk fibroin is a very attractive natural fibrous protein, with good prospects for biomedical applications. It has good water and oxygen permeability, good adhesion, and can promote cell growth, with relatively low immune inflammatory response, as well as the protease susceptibility.It also has good tensile properties. However, pure silk fibroin material is relatively brittle, and silk fibroin material mixed with other synthetic or natural polymer material can achieve the purpose of improving mechanical strength, for example, PVA, chitosan, collagen and so on. In addition, silk fibroin has good biocompatibility .It can inhibit cartilage differentiation of cartilage cells. Chitosan ,as a proteoglycan, is similar with chondroitin sulfate and hyaluronic acid in cartilage tissue in physical structure and nature of cartilage matrix ,it can promote the formation and repair of cartilage defects. HTCC in the sterilization of chitosan derivatives, and can promote repair of cartilage defects .In the experiment we use the method of freeze-drying, silk fibroin, chitosan and its derivatives composite scaffold material.We use SEM, FTIR, XRD for the characterization of the materials, and extraction of rabbit articular cartilage cells, the materials and cartilage cells in vitro co-culture by HE staining method and MTT of the biocompatibility of the material tested, experimental results show that the silk fibroin composite of chitosan and its derivatives HTCC scaffolds have good mechanical properties, pore-like structure for the attachment of chondrocytes, growth and proliferation, but also has good biocompatibility, suitable for the repair of cartilage defects.