The effect of crosslinking density on nasal chondrocytes' redifferentiation

In this manucript, we investigate the effect of different crosslinking density of the thiolated hyalonric acid hydrogel as the supporting matrix for monolayer expanded chondrocyte's chondrogenic redifferentiation.A wide ragne of gene expression level was found to be correlated with teh level of crosslinking, and the biological processes and KEGG pathways associated with this panel of genes are related to cell death, immune response, and regulation of various foundamental developmental processes. Overall design: A combination of thiolate hyaluronic acid and thiolate gelatin (1:1, 10mg/mL) solution was mixed with PEDGA crosslinker solution (10mg/mL) in a solid content ratio of 1:2, 1:4, 1:6, 1:8. Tissue engineered constructs were made from nasal chondrocytes mixed with these four hydrogels with different crosslinking density. The tissue engineered constructs were cultured for 6 weeks in normal oxygen condition (21% oxygen, NRX). After 6 weeks of culture, the constructs were assessed vis histology, immunofluorescence, GAG/DNA assays, RNA sequencing.