Nuovi Idrogeli per l'Ingegneria Tissutale ed il Drug Delivery

The aim of the present work was to develop an artificial bile duct for treatment of neoplastic or flogistic diseases of biliary tree. Our research is focused on evaluating the feasibility of different tissue engineering platforms to support the formation of bile duct. Our previous work was focused on developing a novel promising candidate biomaterials for tissue regeneration and repair. We developed a bilayered chitosan tubes prepared with a chitosan powders with 95% deacetylation rate. The porous scaffolds were fabricated by solubilizing chitosan in dilute glacial acetic acid, transferring the solution to a cylindrical mould, freezing at -80°C followed by overnight freeze-gelation. Several physico-chemical variables such as microstructural architecture, porosity, elongation strength, fluid permeability and enzymatic degradation were studied. A polymer concentration of 4.5% (w/v) was most suitable for scaffold fabrication. Histology (hematoxylin and eosin) and immunohistochemistry procedure (proliferation and differentiations markers) were used for the cellularized constructs under different conditions. These results show that the artificial bile duct thus developed can be a promising technology for the production of prosthesis to be used in reparation or surgical substitution of the native bile duct.