High-Strength Hydrogel Attachment through Nanofibrous Reinforcement

• Published in: Advanced healthcare materials Vol. 10; no. 4; p. e2001119
• Main Authors: Zhao, Jiacheng, Kirillova, Alina, Kelly, Cambre N, Xu, Heng, Koshut, William J, Yang, Feichen, Gall, Ken, Wiley, Benjamin J
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Germany 01.02.2021
• Subjects: Bone and Bones; Cartilage; Hydrogels; Nanofibers; Porosity; Tissue Engineering; shear strength; α-tricalcium phosphate; hydrogels; bacterial cellulose; cartilage
• ISSN: 2192-2659
• DOI: 10.1002/adhm.202001119

The repair of a cartilage lesion with a hydrogel requires a method for long-term fixation of the hydrogel in the defect site. Attachment of a hydrogel to a base that allows for integration with bone can enable long-term fixation of the hydrogel, but current methods of forming bonds to hydrogels have less than a tenth of the shear strength of the osteochondral junction. This communication describes a new method, nanofiber-enhanced sticking (NEST), for bonding a hydrogel to a base with an adhesive shear strength three times larger than the state-of-the-art. An example of NEST is described in which a nanofibrous bacterial cellulose sheet is bonded to a porous base with a hydroxyapatite-forming cement followed by infiltration of the nanofibrous sheet with hydrogel-forming polymeric materials. This approach creates a mineralized nanofiber bond that mimics the structure of the osteochondral junction, in which collagen nanofibers extend from cartilage into a mineralized region that anchors cartilage to bone.