Fabrication of porous hydrogels containing hyaluronic acid by photoinduced crosslinking

Biocompatible hydrogels have gained much attention in tissue engineering, preferably as scaffolds providing the cell attachment and viability in the hydrogel bulk. This requires fabrication of the hydrogels with pores, the sizes of which are in the range of 100-300 µm, most optimal for cell growth. The composition of hydrogels or method of fabrication may affect the formation of porous structure. We prepared hydrogels via photoinduced crosslinking of hyaluronic acid modified with glycidyl methacrylate under irradiation at different wavelengths using two photoinitiators. The hydrogel structure was varied by blending hyaluronic acid derivative with other modified polymers of natural origin (gelatin and pullulan) with grafted vinyl moieties or using filler (sucrose). The most optimal pore sizes for cell growth were obtained for hydrogels derived from modified hyaluronic acid, with the addition of sucrose or processed with the single freeze-thaw cycle. The produced hydrogels demonstrated lack of cytotoxicity with HaCaT cells incorporated inside gel bulk.