The future of tissue engineering requires development of intel
ligent biomaterials using nanoparticles. Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) have several app
lications in biology and medicine; one example is Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved contrast agents in magnetic resonance imaging. Recently, MNPs have been encapsulated within cell-encapsulating hydrogels to create novel nanobiomaterials (
i.
e., M-gels), which can be manipulated and assembled in magnetic fields. The M-gels can be used as building blocks for bottom-up tissue engineering to create 3D tissue constructs. For tissue engineering app
lications of M-gels, it is essential to study the release of encapsulated MNPs from the hydrogel polymer network and the effect of MNPs on hydrogel properties, including mechanical characteristics, porosity, swel
ling behavior, and cellular response (
e.g., viabi
lity, growth). Therefore, we evaluated the release of MNPs from photocross
linkable gelatin methacrylate hydrogels as the polymer network undergoes biodegradation using inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy. MNP release correlated
linearly with hydrogel biodegradation rate with correlation factors (Pearson product moment correlation coefficient) of 0.96 卤 0.03 and 0.99 卤 0.01 for MNP concentrations of 1% and 5%, respectively. We also evaluated the effect of MNPs on hydrogel mechanical properties, porosity, and swel
ling behavior, as well as cell viabi
lity and growth in MNP-encapsulating hydrogels. Fibroblasts encapsulated with MNPs in hydrogels remained viable (>80% at
t = 144 h) and formed microtissue constructs in culture (
t = 144 h). These results indicated that MNP-encapsulating hydrogels show promise as intel
ligent nanobiomaterials, with great potential to impact broad areas of bioengineering, including tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and pharmaceutical app
lications.
Keywords:
magnetic nanoparticles; nanoparticle release; hydrogel degradation; nanotoxicity; ligent+nanobiomaterials&qsSearchArea=searchText">intelligent nanobiomaterials