Comparison of the Effect of EDC and Glutaraldehyde as Cross-linkers on Morphology and Swelling Ratio of Gelatin/Chitosan Scaffolds for Use in Skin Tissue Engineering

Skin is the body's largest organ, the first layer protecting the internal organs of the body from external damages. Because of this, the skin is exposed to many injuries, which, if severe, will require external intervention for treatment. One of the methods for treating severe skin lesions is tissue engineering. In the present study, chitosan and gelatin in three different ratios are utilized to skin scaffold construction and the effect of EDC and two different percentages of Glutaraldehyde as cross-linkers on morphology and swelling ratio of the mentioned scaffolds has been investigated. The results indicate that in general, the pores in the samples cross-linked by Glutaraldehyde are more uniform than those cross-linked by EDC and the samples immersed in EDC solution, have a layered structure. Furthermore, it can be concluded that in the samples cross-linked by EDC, increasing the ratio of gelatin to chitosan, reduces the average pore size, the percentage of porosity, swelling ratio, and water uptake of them, which is reversed in the samples containing Glutaraldehyde. In addition, the results show that by increasing the percentage of Glutaraldehyde from 0.01% to 0.02%, the water uptake and swelling ratio of the samples increase.