Physicochemical and in vivo evaluation of crosslinked carboxymethyl chitosan-gelatin scaffolds for wound healing application

This study intends to fabricate new antimicrobial scaffolds based on crosslinked Carboxymethyl chitosan (CMCh)/gelatin (Gel) biopolymers. While the physical and morphological characteristics of the crosslinked scaffolds were investigated using the swelling index, hydrolytic degradation study, moisture permeation study, surface roughness profiling, and tensile strength study, their chemical crosslinking was proved using FTIR spectroscopy and DSC analysis. Moreover, antibacterial study, MTT assay, and in vitro scratch assay were also conducted to get more information about the inherent antibacterial, cytocompatible and in vitro wound healing potential of the developed scaffolds.

Further, the effectiveness of developed scaffolds was also assessed using an in-vivo incision wound study. FTIR and DSC studies confirmed the crosslinking of polymers at low concentrations of glut by the formation of Schiff base. Further, swelling index, hydrolytic degradation, tensile strength, and roughness of the scaffolds varied with both polymer ratio and concentration of the crosslinking agent. Additionally, scaffolds showed inherent antibacterial properties against gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria strains and exhibited excellent cell viability at lower concentrations of crosslinker.

In-vitro wound healing scratch assay revealed proliferation and migration of cells when treated with scaffolds compared to control and standard treated formulation. Further, the TS of the healed wound indicated the quality of healing of the incision wound which was found to be higher for the group treated with an optimized scaffold in comparison to other groups. Thus, our findings show that developed scaffolds have a high applicative potential that can be studied further for biomedical applications such as skin tissue regeneration and wound healing.

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