Thermo-responsive chitosan/silk fibroin/amino-functionalized mesoporous silica hydrogels with strong and elastic characteristics for bone tissue engineering

Amino-functionalized mesoporous silica nanoparticles with radially porous architecture were optimally synthesized, and they were used together with silk fibroin and chitosan to produce a type of covalently crosslinked composite hydrogel using genipin as a crosslinker. The optimally achieved composite gels were found to be thermo-responsive at physiological temperature and pH with well-defined injectability. They were also detected to have mechanically strong and elastic characteristics. In addition, these gels showed the ability to release bioactive Si ions suited to an effective dose range in approximately linear manners for a few weeks. Studies on the cell-gel constructs revealed that the composite gels well supported the growth of seeded MC3T3-E1 cells, and the deposition of matrix components. Results obtained from the detection of alkaline phosphatase activity and the matrix mineralization in the cell-gel constructs confirmed that these composite gels had certain osteogenic capacity. The obtained results suggest that these composite gels have promising potential in bone repair and regeneration.