Dendrimer-modified gelatin methacrylate hydrogels carrying adipose-derived stromal/stem cells promote cartilage regeneration

BACKGROUND: Cartilage defects pose a significant burden on medical treatment, leading to an urgent need to develop regenerative medicine approaches for cartilage repair, such as stem cell therapy. However, the direct injection of stem cells can result in insufficient delivery or inaccurate differentiation. Hence, it is necessary to choose appropriate stem cell delivery scaffolds with high biocompatibility, injectability and chondral differentiation induction ability for cartilage regeneration. METHODS: In this study, the photocrosslinked gelatin methacrylate (GelMA) hydrogel with high cell affinity and plasticity was selected and strengthened by incorporating methacrylic anhydride-modified poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM-MA) to fabricate an adipose-derived stromal/stem cells (ASCs) delivery scaffold for cartilage repair. The physiochemical properties of the GelMA/PAMAM-MA hydrogel, including the internal structure, stability and mechanical properties, were tested. Then, ASCs were encapsulated into the hydrogels to determine the in vitro and in vivo chondrogenic differentiation induction abilities of the GelMA/PAMAM-MA hydrogel. RESULTS: Compared with the GelMA hydrogel, the GelMA/PAMAM-MA hydrogel exhibited more uniform structure, stability and mechanical properties. Moreover, on the basis of good biocompatibility, the hybrid hydrogel was proven to exert a sufficient ability to promote cartilage regeneration by in vitro three-dimensional (3D) culture of rASCs and in vivo articular cartilage defect repair. CONCLUSIONS: The injectable photocrosslinked GelMA/PAMAM-MA hydrogel was proven to be a capable stem cell carrier for cartilage repair and provides new insight into the design strategy of stem cell delivery scaffolds. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13287-022-02705-6.