CHITOSAN/GELATIN NETWORK BASED BIOMATERIALS IN TISSUE ENGINEERING

Abstract

Tissue can be looked upon as a cell composite, where cell expresses its functions, while extra cellular matrixes (ECMs) secreted provide cell information and do its matrix functions. Here ECMs are, physical and chemical networks consisted of proteins (e.g. collagen, fibronectin, laminin and vitronectin etc.) and glycosaminoglycans (GAGs, e.g. hyaluronic acid, chodroitin 4-sulfate, chodroitin 6-sulfate etc.). The idea cell-carrier should be the one, which most mimics the ECM. Therefore, chitosan in which the N-acetylglucosamine moiety is a structural feature also found in the GAGs, and gelatin, the partially denatured derivative of collagen were used to develop hiomaterials. They will exhibit related bioactivities, as their analogue and precursor, respectively.Chitosan gelatin network based biomaterials can be applied as membrane, scaffold, surface modifier and non-viral vectorfor. DNA delivery in tissue engineering. Some of our activities were reported. These biomaterials have promising perspectives.