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The meniscus is a fibrocartilaginous tissue that is very important for the stability of the knee joint. However, it has a low ability to heal itself, so damage to it will always lead to articular cartilage degeneration. The goal of this study was to make a new type of meniscus scaffold made of chitosan, loofah mat, and PHBV nanofibers, as well as to describe hydrogel composite scaffolds in terms of their shape, chemical composition, mechanical properties, and temperature. Three different concentrations of genipin (0.1, 0.3, and 0.5 %) were used and the optimal crosslinker concentration was 0.3 % for Chitosan/loofah (CL) and Chitosan/loofah/PHBV fiber (CLF). Scaffolds were seeded using undifferentiated MSCs and incubated for 21 days to investigate the chondrogenic potential of hydrogel scaffolds. Cell proliferation analyses were performed using WST-1 assay, GAG content was analyzed, SEM and fluorescence imaging observed morphologies and cell attachment, and histological and immunohistochemical studies were performed. The in vitro analysis showed no cytotoxic effect and enabled cells to attach, proliferate, and migrate inside the scaffold. In conclusion, the hydrogel composite scaffold is a promising material for engineering meniscus tissue., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Recently, biologically active natural macromolecules have come into prominence to be used as potential materials in scaffold design due to their unique characteristics which can mimic the human tissue structure with their physical and chemical similarity. Among them, fish scale (FS) is a biologically active material with its structural similarity to bone tissue due to including type I collagen and hydroxyapatite and also have distinctive collagen arrangement. In the present study, it is aimed to design a novel composite scaffold with FS incorporation into chitosan (CH) matrix for bone tissue regeneration. Therefore, two biological macromolecules, fish scale and chitosan, were combined to produce bio-composite scaffold. First, FS were decellularized with the chemical method and disrupted physically as microparticles (100 μm), followed by dispersal in CH with ultrasonic homogenisation, CH/FS scaffolds were fabricated by lyophilization technique. Scaffolds were characterized physically, chemically, mechanically, and morphologically. SEM and porosity results showed that CH/FS scaffolds have uniform pore structure showing high porosity. Mechanical properties and degradation rate are enhanced with increasing FS content. In vitro cytotoxicity, proliferation and osteogenic activity of the scaffolds were evaluated with SaOS-2 cell line. CH/FS scaffolds did not show any cytotoxicity effect and the cells were gradually proliferated during culture period. Cell viability results showed that, FS microparticles had a proliferative effect on SaOS-2 cells when compared to control group. ALP activity and biomineralization studies indicated that FS microparticle reinforcement increased osteogenic activity during culture period. As a biological macromolecule with unique characteristics, FS was found as cytocompatible and provided promising effects as reinforcement agents for polymeric scaffolds. In conclusion, fabricated CH/FS bio-composites showed potential for bone tissue engineering applications., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The current study reports the biocompatibility and biomechanical characteristics of loofah-based scaffolds combined with hydroxyapatite (HA), cellulose, poly-l-lactic acid (PLLA) with chondrocytes-like cells. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) micrographs of the scaffolds showed that the addition of PLLA usually resulted in an increase in cell's attachment on scaffolds. Mechanical and elemental analyzes were assessed using tensile test and Energy Dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDS), respectively. In summary, we showed that the loofah+PLLA+HA scaffolds perform significantly better than other loofah-based scaffolds employed in terms of increasing a diversity of mechanical properties including tensile strength and Young's modulus. Based on the analysis of the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) thermograms and EDS spectrums that give an idea about the calcium phosphate (CaP) ratios, the improvement in the mechanical properties could principally be recognized to the strong interaction formed between loofah, PLLA and HA. The viability of chondrocytes on loofah-based scaffolds was analyzed by XTT tests. However, none of the scaffolds have proved to be toxic in metabolic activity. The histological evaluation obtained by hematoxylin and eosin (H&E), Masson trichrome, toluidine blue and immunohistochemistry methods showed that cells in all scaffolds produced extracellular matrix that defined proteoglycan and type I-II collagens. The results of this study suggest that the loofah-based scaffold with desirable properties can be considered as an ideal candidate for cartilage tissue engineering applications., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)