Rapid Screening of the Lower Critical Solution Temperature of Injectable Hydrogels for Tissue Engineering Applications

Published

February 1, 2002

Author(s)

Michael Weir, Joseph M. Antonucci, Francis W. Wang

Abstract

A rapid screening method was developed to examine the effect of a wide array of potentially biodegradable crosslinking monomers on the lower critical solution temperatue (LCST) of N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAAm) hydrogels. Both the type of crosslinker and the concentration of crosslinker were systematically altered across a 96-well glass microplate. UV transmission was measured at 490 nm using a multilabel counter and the LCST was defined as the temperature at which the transmission at 490 nm is equal to 0.5. For all crosslinkers studierd, the LCST was found to be between 28 C and 31 C, with little difference in temperature when altering crosslink structure and/or concentration. Additionally, there appears to be significant effect of crosslinker hydrophilicity on the time required for gel collapse and sbsequent release of water. Even at low crosslinker concentrations, the gels created from the more hydrophillic crosslinkers appear to have a decreased water release rate, while the gels with more hydrophobic crosslinkers exhibit a relative increase in water release rate.

Volume

78(8)

Conference Dates

April 1, 2002

Conference Location

Tampa, FL

Conference Title

Society for Biomaterials Meeting

Pub Type

Conferences

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Keywords

biodegradable, biomaterials, hydrogel, N-isopropylacrylamide, polymer scaffold, thermo-responsive, tissue engineering

Citation

Weir, M. , Antonucci, J. and Wang, F. (2002), Rapid Screening of the Lower Critical Solution Temperature of Injectable Hydrogels for Tissue Engineering Applications, Society for Biomaterials Meeting, Tampa, FL, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=851955 (Accessed October 15, 2025)