New bioartificial systems and biodegradable synthetic polymers for cardiac tissue engineering: a preliminary screening

The aim of this work was the preparation and characterization of new polymeric biomaterials for application in myocardial tissue engineering. The attention was firstly focused on new bioartificial polymeric systems, with the aim to combine the features of synthetic polymers with the specific cell and tissue compatibility of biopolymers. In this work, alginate, collagen, and gelatin were used as the natural component and poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) was used as the synthetic component. The characterization included morphological, topographical, and mechanical analyses, thermogravimetric characterization, infrared spectroscopy, and cell culture tests. For the biological characterization, C2C12 myoblasts were cultured on different materials and cell adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation were evaluated. The morphological, topographical, and mechanical analyses, as well as the biological characterization, were also applied to a tri-block poly(esterether- ester) copolymer, obtained by reaction of preformed poly(ethylene glycol) with µ-caprolactone, and a novel poly(ester urethane) obtained by using an l-lisine-derived diisocyanate, giving nontoxic degradation products. The encouraging results obtained in this work allowed us to select some of the new bioartificial polymers, the synthetic tri-block copolymer, and the polyurethane as potential good materials to prepare scaffolds for myocardial tissue engineering.