Injectable gellan gum hydrogels as supports for cartilage tissue engineering applications

Abstract

Gellan gum is an extracellular microbial polysaccharide from Sphingomonas paucimobilis that forms a firm and transparent gel in the presence of metallic ions. This hydrogel presents some interesting features that allow its use as a cell encapsulating support, or as an in vivo injectable system. In this work, the usefulness of gellan gum hydrogels as supports for cartilage tissue engineering applications was shown. Processing versatility of gellan gum into different structures such as discs, fibers, membranes, particles, and 3D porous structures using temperature and pH based technologies was demonstrated. [...]