Carbohydrate Polymers 98 (2013) 877–885 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Carbohydrate Polymers jo ur nal homep age: www.elsevier.com/locate/carbpol Pectin/carboxymethyl cellulose/microfibrillated cellulose composite scaffolds for tissue engineering Neethu Ninan a,c,∗ , Muthunarayanan Muthiah b , In-Kyu Park b , Anne Elain a , Sabu Thomas c , Yves Grohens a a Université de Bretagne Sud, Laboratoire Ingénierie des Matériaux de Bretagne, BP 92116, 56321 Lorient Cedex, France b Department of Biomedical Sciences and Center for Biomedical Human Resources (BK-21 project), Chonnam National University Medical School, Gwangju 501-757, South Korea c Centre for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology and School of Chemical Sciences, Mahatma Gandhi University, Priyadarsini Hills PO, Kottayam 686560, Kerala, India a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 6 March 2013 Received in revised form 18 June 2013 Accepted 28 June 2013 Available online 7 July 2013 Keywords: Pectin Carboxymethyl cellulose Microfibrillated cellulose Lyophilisation Scaffold Porosity a b s t r a c t Highly porous three-dimensional scaffolds made of biopolymers are of great interest in tissue engineering applications. A novel scaffold composed of pectin, carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and microfibrillated cellulose (MFC) were synthesised using lyophilisation technique. The optimised scaffold with 0.1% MFC, C(0.1%), showed highest compression modulus (∼3.987 MPa) and glass transition temperature (∼103 ◦ C). The pore size for the control scaffold, C(0%), was in the range of 30–300 m while it was significantly reduced to 10–250 m in case of C(0.1%). Using micro computed tomography, the porosity of C(0.1%) was estimated to be 88%. C(0.1%) showed excellent thermal stability and lower degradation rate compared to C(0%). The prepared samples were also characterised using XRD and FTIR. C(0.1%) showed controlled water uptake ability and in vitro degradation in PBS. It exhibited highest cell viability on NIH3T3 fibro- blast cell line. These results suggest that these biocompatible composite scaffolds can be used for tissue engineering applications. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Biopolymers are of immense interest in tissue engineering as they are cytofriendly, biodegradable and contain bio-functional molecules that aid in the attachment, proliferation and dif- ferentiation of cells (Van Vlierberghe, Dubruel, & Schacht, 2011). Polysaccharides are ubiquitous biopolymers consisting of monosaccharides, joined together by glycosidic bonds (García- González, Alnaief, & Smirnova, 2011). They have several advantages including low toxicity, good biocompatibility, low cost and chem- ical resemblance to bioactive glycosaminoglycan molecules in the extracellular matrix of mammalian tissues (Malafaya, Silva, & Reis, 2007). Various naturally occurring polysaccharides are used for fab- rication of tissue engineering scaffolds including starch (Rodrigues, Gomes, Leonor, & Reis, 2012), alginate (Shachar, Tsur-Gang, Dvir, Leor, & Cohen, 2011), chitin (Sudheesh Kumar et al., 2011), chitosan ∗ Corresponding author at: Laboratoire d‘Ingénierie des MATériaux de Bretagne (LIMatB), Centre de Recherche Christiaan Huygens, Rue de St Maudé – BP 92116, Bureau 32 bis, Université de Bretagne-Sud, 56321 Lorient Cedex, France. Tel.: +33 751464109/+91 0484 2557031; fax: +33 0 2 97 87 45 19. E-mail address: neethuninan85@yahoo.co.in (N. Ninan). (Sionkowska & Płanecka, 2013), hyaluronic acid (Lee & Kurisawa, 2013), cellulose (Pooyan, Tannenbaum, & Garmestani, 2012), pectin (Coimbra et al., 2011) and agarose (Khanarian, Haney, Burga, & Lu, 2012). Pectin is a heterosaccharide found in terrestrial plant cell wall, consisting mainly of esterified d-galacturonic acid residues in -(1→4) chains (Nunes et al., 2012). It is a polyuronate which on subjected to calcium induced gelation results in the formation of egg box like structures that enable immobilisation of bioactive components or cells inside the gel structure (Munarin et al., 2011). Pectin based biomaterials are used for tissue engineering (Coimbra et al., 2011), wound dressing (Munarin, Tanzi, & Petrini, 2012), gene transfer (Katav et al., 2008), drug delivery (Smistad, Bøyum, Alund, Samuelsen, & Hiorth, 2012) and cancer targeting (Dutta & Sahu, 2012). However, due to poor mechanical properties, it is mostly blended with other polymers. Carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) is a water soluble derivative of cellulose with -(1→4) glucopyranose residues and has adverse uses in dermal tissue engineering (Ramli & Wong, 2011), pulp cell regeneration (Chen & Fan, 2007), protein delivery (Tripathy & Raichur, 2013) and prevention of post-surgical adhesions (Di Spiezio Sardo et al., 2011). Due to its polyelectrolyte nature, it is used as an excellent superabsorbent (Wang & Wang, 2010). It also acts as a viscosity modifier, thickener and emulsifier 0144-8617/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.carbpol.2013.06.067