Intensified Stiffness and Photodynamic Provocation in a Collagen-Based Composite Hydrogel Drive Chondrogenesis.

ABSTRACT: Directed differentiation of bone-marrow-derived stem cells (BMSCs) toward chondrogenesis has served as a predominant method for cartilage repair but suffers from poor oriented differentiation tendency and low differentiation efficiency. To overcome these two obstacles, an injectable composite hydrogel that consists of collagen hydrogels serving as the scaffold support to accommodate BMSCs and cadmium selenide (CdSe) quantum dots (QDs) is constructed. The introduction of CdSe QDs considerably strengthens the stiffness of the collagen hydrogels via mutual crosslinking using a natural crosslinker (i.e., genipin), which simultaneously triggers photodynamic provocation (PDP) to produce reactive oxygen species (ROS). Experimental results demonstrate that the intensified stiffness and augmented R

SUBMITTER: Zheng L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6702628 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature