Using cerebrospinal fluid for in situ fabrication of injectable alginate hydrogels for spinal cord repair

Severe mechanical trauma of the spinal cord induces a secondary injury response that contributes to post injury cell death and the formation of barriers inhibitory to neuronal regeneration. It is believed that engineered scaffolds produce favorable results when they mimic the properties of the tissue that they are aiming to replicate. Alginate hydrogels have been shown to be beneficial in a number of biomaterial applications and this study shows that alginate hydrogels formed in the presence of an artificial cerebrospinal fluid are able to form hydrogels with mechanical properties similar to those exhibited by neural tissue in the CNS. Extracellular concentration of calcium is increased in the cerebrospinal fluid after spinal cord injury and has been linked to the apoptosis of surviving cells. The use of in situ forming alginate hydrogels is a novel approach that may aid in the regeneration of neurons after spinal cord injury and in the reduction of the effects of secondary injury.