Applications of Bacterial Cellulose as a Natural Polymer in Tissue Engineering

Mesenchymal stem cell therapy using Pal-KTTKS-enriched carboxylated cellulose improves burn wound in rat model

Despite the great progress in developing wound dressings, delayed wound closure still remains a global challenge. Thus, developing novel wound dressings and employing advanced strategies, including tissue engineering, are urgently desired. The carboxylated cellulose was developed through the in situ synthesis method and further reinforced by incorporating pal-KTTKS to stimulate collagen synthesis and improve wound healing. The developed composites supported cell adhesion and proliferation and showed good biocompatibility. To boost wound-healing performance, adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) were seeded on the pal-KTTKS-enriched composites to be implanted in a rat model of burn wound healing. Healthy male rats were randomly divided into four groups and wound-healing performance of Vaseline gauze (control), carboxylated cellulose (CBC), pal-KTTKS-enriched CBC (KTTKS-CBC), and MSCs seeded on the KTTKS-CBC composites (MSC-KTTKS-CBC) were evaluated on days 3, 7, and 14 post-implantation. In each group, the designed therapeutic dressings were renewed every 5 days to increase wound-healing performance. We found that KTTKS-CBC and MSC-KTTKS-CBC composites exhibited significantly better wound healing capability, as evidenced by significantly alleviated inflammation, increased collagen deposition, improved angiogenesis, and considerably accelerated wound closure. Nevertheless, the best wound-healing performance was observed in the MSC-KTTKS-CBC groups among all four groups. This research suggests that the MSC-KTTKS-CBC composite offers a great deal of promise as a wound dressing to enhance wound regeneration and expedite wound closure in the clinic.

A review of carbon nanomaterials/bacterial cellulose composites for nanomedicine applications

Carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) mainly include fullerene, carbon nanotubes, graphene, carbon quantum dots, nanodiamonds, and their derivatives. As a new type of material in the field of nanomaterials, it has outstanding physical and chemical properties, such as minor size effects, substantial specific surface area, extremely high reaction activity, biocompatibility, and chemical stability, which have attracted widespread attention in the medical community in the past decade. However, the single use of carbon nanomaterials has problems such as self-aggregation and poor water solubility. Researchers have recently combined them with bacterial cellulose to form a new intelligent composite material to improve the defects of carbon nanomaterials. This composite material has been widely synthesized and used in targeted drug delivery, biosensors, antibacterial dressings, tissue engineering scaffolds, and other nanomedicine fields. This paper mainly reviews the research progress of carbon nanomaterials based on bacterial cellulose in nanomedicine. In addition, the potential cytotoxicity of these composite materials and their components in vitro and in vivo was discussed, as well as the challenges and gaps that need to be addressed in future clinical applications.

Global Trends in Natural Biopolymers in the 21st Century: A Scientometric Review

Since the 21st century, natural biopolymers have played an indispensable role in long-term global development strategies, and their research has shown a positive growth trend. However, these substantive scientific results are not conducive to our quick grasp of hotspots and insight into future directions and to understanding which local changes have occurred and which trend areas deserve more attention. Therefore, this study provides a new data-driven bibliometric analysis strategy and framework for mining the core content of massive bibliographic data, based on mathematical models VOS Viewer and CiteSpace software, aiming to understand the research prospects and opportunities of natural biopolymers. The United States is reported to be the most important contributor to research in this field, with numerous publications and active institutions; polymer science is the most popular subject category, but the further emphasis should be placed on interdisciplinary teamwork; mainstream research in this field is divided into five clusters of knowledge structures; since the explosion in the number of articles in 2018, researchers are mainly engaged in three fields: “medical field,” “biochemistry field,” and “food science fields.” Through an in-depth analysis of natural biopolymer research, this article provides a better understanding of trends emerging in the field over the past 22 years and can also serve as a reference for future research.

Recent Advances in Development of Natural Cellulosic Non-Woven Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering

In recent years, tissue engineering researchers have exploited a variety of biomaterials that can potentially mimic the extracellular matrix (ECM) for tissue regeneration. Natural cellulose, mainly obtained from bacterial (BC) and plant-based (PC) sources, can serve as a high-potential scaffold material for different regenerative purposes. Natural cellulose has drawn the attention of researchers due to its advantages over synthetic cellulose including its availability, cost effectiveness, perfusability, biocompatibility, negligible toxicity, mild immune response, and imitation of native tissues. In this article, we review recent in vivo and in vitro studies which aimed to assess the potential of natural cellulose for the purpose of soft (skin, heart, vein, nerve, etc.) and hard (bone and tooth) tissue engineering. Based on the current research progress report, it is sensible to conclude that this emerging field of study is yet to satisfy the clinical translation criteria, though reaching that level of application does not seem far-fetched.

Preparation and characterization of sodium alginate-PVA polymeric scaffolds by electrospinning method for skin tissue engineering applications

Sodium alginate (SA) has proven its high potential in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. One of the main weaknesses of this polysaccharide is its low spinnability. Nanofiber-based scaffolds are of interest to scientists for biomedical engineering. The main aim of this study was to improve the spinnability of SA in combination with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA). The main parameters in the electrospinning of the optimized SA:PVA ratio, including voltage, flow rate, and working space were also optimized. To achieve this, response surface methodology under central composite design was employed to design the experiments scientifically. The final nanofiber scaffolds were studied using scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy for degradability, swelling, tensile strength, porosity, nanofiber diameter, contact angle, and cytotoxicity. Based on the results, the best ratio for SA : PVA was 1 : 6.5 that was spinnable in various values for the process parameters. The fabricated scaffolds under these conditions revealed good physical, chemical, mechanical, and biological features. L929 cell lines revealed high viability during 48 h culture. The results revealed that uniform and homogeneous nanofibers with regular size distribution (166 nm) were obtained at 30 kV, 0.55 μL h^-1, and 12.50 cm. To sum up, the fabricated scaffolds with the optimized ratio under the reported conditions indicate at good biologically compatible candidates for skin tissue engineering.