STUDY ON THERMOSENSITIVITY OF CHITOSAN SCAFFOLD AND ON ITS EFFECTS ON FIBROBLAST PROLIFERATION IN CELL THERAPY FOR SOFT TISSUE AUGMENTATION

Traditional surgical method or injection using filler is performed for soft tissue augmentation. Surgical methods have disadvantage of surgical morbidity. Commercially available injectable materials have the disadvantages such as resorption, short-term effect. repeated application and hypersensitivity. Significant shortcoming of cell therapy using autologous fibroblasts is delay of treatment effect. Chitosan/beta-glycerol phosphate (GP) solution has thermosensitive property and allows sol-gel transition at physiologic pH and temperature. These properties may resolve the delay of treatment effect. The purposes of this study are to evaluate the viscosity and pH changes of chitosan/beta-GP solutions and to evaluate the effect of chitosan/beta-GP solution on fibroblast proliferation and production of collagen. We measured the viscosity and pH as function of temperature, of the solution containing 1: 0.7, 1:0.75, 1: 0.8 chitosan (1, 10, 100, 700 kDa) /beta-GP. Fibroblasts from ears of 5 rats were cultured in chitosan/beta-GP solutions for 3 weeks. Cell proliferation and collagen contents were measured every week with WST (water-soluble tetrazolium salt) assay and Collagen assay respectively. The Results are 1) Chitosan(100 kDa<)/beta-GP solution (1: 0.75) showed sol-gel transition at physiologic pH and body temperature and injectable properties. It will enable to resolve the delay in treatment effect 2) Cell proliferation and total collagen contents of the control group were increased with time. However, these decreased after the 1st week in experimental group 3) Collagen contents in the experimental group are higher than that of control group. Chitosan/beta-GP solution may provide favorable conditions for cell function