Publication

Abstract : Pectin is a natural polysaccharide and the pectin scaffold system has proved to be suitable for an intended use towards biomedical applications, such as drug delivery and tissue engineering. Studies on gemcitabine loaded pectin-fibrin scaffold have shown it to be cytotoxic towards ovarian cancer cells at the in vitro level. Our present study aims at substantiating the biocompatibility of the pectin-fibrin composite scaffold in a mouse implantation model in order to prove the compatibility of the scaffold system in vivo. Composite scaffolds were implanted and the biocompatibility was assessed after the 1st, 6th and 12th week of study, respectively. Macroscopic inspection of the implantation site revealed no pathological inflammatory responses and histopathology studies depicted remarkable neutrophil accumulation within the implant in a timely manner. Furthermore, the immune response indicated significant difference with cytokines IL-1β, IL-10, and IL-17α, respectively. These results suggested that this scaffold system could be a promising targeted drug delivery system for the slow release of drugs in a mouse disease model.