A Design of Experiments (DoE) Approach to Optimize Cryogel Manufacturing for Tissue Engineering Applications

last updated: 2022-05-18
ProjectTERM - Programa Doutoramento Norte 2020 :: publications list
TitleA Design of Experiments (DoE) Approach to Optimize Cryogel Manufacturing for Tissue Engineering Applications
Publication TypePapers in Scientific Journals
Year of Publication2022
AuthorsCarvalho D. N., Gonçalves C., Oliveira J. M., Williams D. S., Mearns Spragg A., Reis R. L., and Silva T. H.
Abstract

Marine origin polymers represent a sustainable and natural alternative to mammal counterparts
regarding the biomedical application due to their similarities with proteins and polysaccharides
present in extracellular matrix (ECM) in humans and can reduce the risks associated with zoonosis
and overcoming social- and religious-related constraints. In particular, collagen-based biomaterials
have been widely explored in tissue engineering scaffolding applications, where cryogels are of
particular interest as low temperature avoids protein denaturation. However, little is known about
the influence of the parameters regarding their behavior, i.e., how they can influence each other
toward improving their physical and chemical properties. Factorial design of experiments (DoE)
and response surface methodology (RSM) emerge as tools to overcome these difficulties, which are
statistical tools to find the most influential parameter and optimize processes. In this work, we
hypothesized that a design of experiments (DoE) model would be able to support the optimization
of the collagen-chitosan-fucoidan cryogel manufacturing. Therefore, the parameters temperature
(A), collagen concentration (B), and fucoidan concentration (C) were carefully considered to be
applied to the Box–Behnken design (three factors and three levels). Data obtained on rheological
oscillatory measurements, as well as on the evaluation of antioxidant concentration and adenosine
triphosphate (ATP) concentration, showed that fucoidan concentration could significantly influence
collagen-chitosan-fucoidan cryogel formation, creating a stable internal polymeric network promoted
by ionic crosslinking bonds. Additionally, the effect of temperature significantly contributed to
rheological oscillatory properties. Overall, the condition that allowed us to have better results, from
an optimization point of view according to the DoE, were the gels produced at

JournalPolymers
Volume14
Pagination2026-2046
Date Published2022-05-16
PublisherMDPI
ISSN2073-4360
DOI10.3390/polym14102026
URLhttps://doi.org/10.3390/polym14102026
Keywordscartilage tissue, cryoenvironment, factorial design, marine biomaterials, Marine origin biopolymers, Optimization
RightsopenAccess
Peer reviewedyes
Statuspublished

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