Oral Poster
Claudio Bini, Roberto Guizzardi, Michela Ceriani, Costanza Trinchero,
Alessia D’Aloia, Stucchi Simone, Barbara
Costa, Laura Cipolla, Mattia Vacchini*.
*Presenting author
Department of Biotechnology and Biosciences,
University of Milano-Bicocca , P.zza della Scienza 2, I-20126 Milano,
Along with
biomedicine development, tissue engineering is becoming a more and more
promising area of research, with ample room to find intelligent solutions to a
variety of clinical problems in the form of biocompatible and biodegradable
materials for tissue regeneration. In this area, the repair of cartilage defects
is a challenging and valuable topic which needs to be studied in detail to
fully exploit its potential.[1] Collagen-based scaffolds are
appealing products for the repair of cartilage defects. However, collagen has
low biomechanical stiffness and undergoes rapid biodegradation and biomaterials
based on it need to be stabilized.[2] This is achieved mainly by chemical
crosslinking methods, to obtained the desired mechanical properties for
implantation and defect repair. Several chemical agents have been used to
achieve this goal.[1] In this study we aimed to test a cross-linked
collagen obtained via a Methylglyoxal (MeG) reaction as chondrocytes behavioral
modulator. MeG is a physiological metabolite formed by several catabolic processes,
it is significantly present in the body and related to some pathological states.[3]
Beside to MeG reaction, cross-linking using 1,4-Butanediol diglycidyl ether
(BDDGE) is performed, to include a commonly used homobifunctional epoxide
compound to cross-link molecules as positive control.[4]
Cross-linked collagen, with altered physical and chemical properties, along
with unmodified one, is used to study the behavior of human chondrocyte C28 immortalized cell line,
focusing on growth, apoptosis and metalloproteinases expression as stress
indicator. BDDGE cross-link shows little improvements if compared to untreated
collagen; notably, MeG cross-linked collagen displays the highest growth and
lowest apoptosis rate in comparison to unmodified and BDDGE ones. Considering
metalloproteinases, unmodified collagen shows the highest expression while the
others exhibit comparable data. As MeG cross-linked collagen improves
chondrocyte C28 growth, further studies are in due course.
Acknowledgments. We gratefully acknowledge FA 2015 for
financial support.
Bibliography
1. Angele P. et al. Influence
of different collagen species on physico-chemical properties of crosslinked
collagen matrices. Biomaterials 25 (2004) 2831–2841
2. Lee CR. et al. The effects
of cross-linking of collagen-glycosaminoglycan scaffolds on compressive
stiffness, chondrocyte-mediated contraction, proliferation and biosynthesis.
Biomaterials 2001;22:3145–54.
3. Naoko Murata-Kamiya and
Hiroyuki Kamiya. Methylglyoxal, an endogenous aldehyde, crosslinks DNA
polymerase and the substrate DNA. Nucleic Acids Research, 2001, Vol. 29, No. 16
3433–3438.
4. Hermanson GT Bioconjugate
Techniques, 2013.
