The future of tissue engineering requires develop
ment of intelligent bio
materials using nanoparticles. Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) have several applications in biology and
medicine; one exa
mple is Food and Drug Ad
ministration (FDA)-approved contrast agents in
magnetic resonance i
maging. Recently, MNPs have been encapsulated within cell-encapsulating hydrogels to create novel nanobio
materials (
i.
e., M-gels), which can be
manipulated and asse
mbled in
magnetic fields. The M-gels can be used as building blocks for botto
m-up tissue engineering to create 3D tissue constructs. For tissue engineering applications of M-gels, it is essential to study the release of encapsulated MNPs fro
m the hydrogel poly
mer network and the effect of MNPs on hydrogel properties, including
mechanical characteristics, porosity, swelling behavior, and cellular response (
e.g., viability, growth). Therefore, we evaluated the release of MNPs fro
m photocrosslinkable gelatin
methacrylate hydrogels as the poly
mer network undergoes biodegradation using inductively coupled plas
ma ato
mic e
mission spectroscopy. MNP release correlated linearly with hydrogel biodegradation rate with correlation factors (Pearson product
mo
ment 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 swelling behavior, as well as cell viability and growth in MNP-encapsulating hydrogels. Fibroblasts encapsulated with MNPs in hydrogels re
mained viable (>80% at
t = 144 h) and for
med
microtissue constructs in culture (
t = 144 h). These results indicated that MNP-encapsulating hydrogels show pro
mise as intelligent nanobio
materials, with great potential to i
mpact broad areas of bioengineering, including tissue engineering, regenerative
medicine, and phar
maceutical applications.
Keywords:
magnetic+nanoparticles&qsSearchArea=searchText">magnetic nanoparticles; nanoparticle release; hydrogel degradation; nanotoxicity; materials&qsSearchArea=searchText">intelligent nanobiomaterials