Preparation and characterization of 3D hyaluronic-acid-based scaffolds with controlled optical properties for biomedical applications

Optical techniques are increasingly employed for monitoring cell-matrix interactions and the availability of 3D scaffolds with controlled optical properties can be extremely useful in this field. Hyaluronic acid (HA) is a glycosaminoglycan found in extracellular tissue in many parts of the body which is becoming more and more popular in biomaterials science as key material for the creation of new tissues using scaffolds. In this frame, a crosslinked hyaluronic acid-lys scaffold has been prepared and characterized. The peculiar optical properties of this scaffold make it a good candidate for exploiting optical techniques for monitoring cell-matrix interactions. Its optical and physico-chemical properties have been investigated by means of UV-VIS and FT-IR spectroscopy. In particular, transmittance and fluorescence measurements have shown low levels of background signals coming from the scaffold itself. In addition the optical quality of 3D scaffolds has been preliminarily tested by two-photon microscopy imaging of embedded fluorescent microbeads and labelled human keratinocites cells at different depths from the scaffold surface.