Date

2015

Author

Göl, Nil

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Osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the joint diseases with the highest prevalence worldwide. Eighty percent of the OA patients present limitation in joint movements and 25% cannot perform their daily activities. Due to loss of regenerative potency in OA joints, treatments with drugs and bioactive agents can provide only limited recovery in the damaged cartilage tissue. Current studies and clinical approaches therefore, mostly focus on cell based treatments with hydrogel carriers. The microcarrier systems supply an efficient method of delivery of cells and drugs within non-invasive, injectable systems. The aim of this thesis was to develop and optimize Cartilage Cell containing injectable Alginate/Sericin/Chondroitin sulphate microspheres (ALG/SER/CS) to modify the natural course of OA. In this study Alginate (ALG), sericin and Chondroitin sulphate materials were mixed at specific concentrations and ALG/SER/CS microspheres with average size of 192±46 µm were prepared by Electrospraying method. Due to high water uptake and less aqueous stability these microspheres needed to be further modified with silk fibroin (SF) using two methods; incorporation and coating. vi The degradation analyses showed that ALG/SER/CS microspheres with SF showed a slow degradation profile in two weeks. During this period, slow, sustained release of Sericin and CS were achieved. By this approach it is thought that CS will be released continuously and as a component of native cartilage tissue ECM, it will enhance regeneration. Released sericin will provide a protein surface for attachment and proliferation of cartilage cells. The cell culture studies were done with the cartilage cell line and the microspheres were shown to increase the cell attachment and proliferation. According to these results, it can be suggested that the developed microcarriers can be for used as injectable systems and have potential for application for Osteoarthritis (OA). In vivo studies on the developed cell microcarriers should be done in further studies to confirm the usability of the microsystems.

Subject Keywords

Cartilage., Alginates., Sericin., Osteoarthritis., Connective tissues., Chondroitin sulfates., Tissue engineering.

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12619498/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/25170

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis