Preparation and Characterization of Injectable Biohybrid Thermogel Scaffold for Cartilage Regeneration

Thermogels are highly useful as injectable hydrogel formulations due to their unique temperature-sensitive solgel properties, but their application in tissue engineering formulations has been limited by their poor mechanical properties and cellular affinity. In this study, a novel injectable biohybrid thermogel scaffold with enhanced mechanical properties and cellular affinity was prepared and evaluated by physical blending of hexanoyl glycol chitosan (HGC), a natural polymer-based thermosensitive hydrogel, with chondroitin sulfate (CS), an extracellular matrix-derived component. The resulting HGC/CS hydrogel retained the temperature-sensitive sol-gel properties attributed to HGC and exhibited suitable physicochemical and rheological properties as an injectable formulation. Furthermore, this biohybrid thermogel showed excellent potential as an injectable tissue engineering scaffold for effective cartilage regeneration due to low toxicity towards chondrocytes and enhanced cell affinity.