Thermosensitive Polysaccharide Hydrogel As a Versatile Platform for Prolonged Salmon Calcitonin Release and Calcium Regulation
Peng Yu, Yanpeng Liu, Ruitao Jin, Pan Zhang, Chunmei Ding, Xulin Jiang, Jiaqi Xing, Bo Bi, Jing Xie, Jianshu Li
Abstract
The common pathological characteristic of osteoporosis and hypercalcemia is the disorder of calcium homeostasis. Currently, salmon calcitonin (sCT), a clinical regenerative medicine, is an attractive chioice to regulate calcium metabolism for alleviation of osteoporosis and hypercalcemia. Unfortunately, serum sCT is quickly cleared in vivo, leading to its short half-life. Here, we designed a versatile hydrogel, based on salmon calcitonin-oxidized calcium alginate (sCT-OCA) conjugate and hydroxypropyl chitin (HPCH). The release profile showed that sCT could be released from HPCH hydrogels loaded with sCT-OCA conjugate (sCT-OCA-HPCH) for at least 28 days with conformation stability. The cellular test demonstrated that the biocompatible sCT-OCA-HPCH, compared with sCT formulation, had capacity in up-regulating alkaline phosphatase activity (∼63% increase) and promoting calcium to deposit into extracellular matrix (∼42% increase). These results indicated that thermosensitive sCT-OCA-HPCH hydrogel herein is a versatile platform for many applications such as calcium metabolism regulation, osteoporosis treatment, and hypercalcemia therapy.