Synthesis and characterization of biphasic calcium phosphate laden thiolated hyaluronic acid hydrogel based scaffold: physical and in-vitro biocompatibility evaluations.

The present study focused on the combination of biphasic calcium phosphate (BCP) nanoparticles into the modified hyaluronic acid based injectable hydrogels for bone tissue engineering. Self-cross-linked thiolated hyaluronic acid (HA-HS) injectable hydrogels loaded with biphasic calcium phosphate (BCP) nanoparticles were prepared by disulfide cross-linking to mimic the extracellular matrix as a potential material for bone treatment. Varying concentration of HA-HS ranging between 1 and 5w/v% was tested to optimize the optimum concentration and were further modified with varying BCP concentrations for final optimization. Physico-chemical characterizations of the prepared hydrogel such as SEM, EDS, FT-IR, and XRD confirmed that the BCP has effectively loaded and distributed homogeneously in the HA-HS hydrogel. The results showed that the 3% (w/v) HA-HS hydrogel exhibits the appropriate properties for injectable hydrogel system such as gelation times, swelling rate and in vitro degradation behavior among all tested concentrations. Cell viability and cell proliferation using osteoblast cells (MC3T3-E1) demonstrated that the BCP laden modified hydrogel are biocompatible in vitro. In light of the encouraging results obtained, BCP laden HA-HS hydrogels might offer the potential to be used as injectable hydrogel in bone tissue engineering.