Biodegradable parallel and porous HSPG/collagen scaffolds for the in vitro culture of NSCs for the spinal cord tissue engineering.

Current challenge in spinal cord tissue engineering which is used in the spinal cord injury is to produce an implantable scaffold capable of bridging the nerve gaps which will produce results similar to autograft without requiring autologous donor tissue. Blending heparan sulfate proteoglycan (HSPG) with collagen resulted in increased hydrophilicity, high porosity (89%), improved mechanical properties and suitable pore sizes were fabricated by optical chemical crosslinking method. The biocompatibility of HSPG/collagen scaffold was assessed for culturing neural stem cells which assisted in directing the growth of regenerating axons in nerve tissue engineering and proliferation by performing MTS assay in vitro. The results of MTS assay and Scanning Electron Microscopy study confirmed the parallel and porous HSPG/collagen scaffold are suitable substrates for spinal cord tissue engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]