The cytotoxicity and cell viability of the Odex-III/CEC (3:7, 5:5,
and 7:3) hydrogels were evaluated by performing MTS assay. Cells thus, their non-cytotoxicity. It was noticed that on days 3 and 7, the
medium of the 3:7 Odex/CEC hydrogel showed a slightly lower
absorbance than those of the other two hydrogels (5:5 and 7:3) as
well as the control, which could be attributed to the large amount
of COO on the hydrogel matrix in the presence of excess amounts
of CEC. Longer-term cell culture results (1 month) showed that the
cells started to proliferate in the same manner comparable to that
of the controls, further confirming the non-cytotoxic nature of the
hydrogels; it could also be inferred that the degradation byproducts
of the hydrogel were non-cytotoxic as well. Moreover, the hydrogels
were clearly broken down steadily with the increase of culture
time with cells (data not shown), this was likely due to the collective
effect of hydrolytic degradation (see Fig. 4) and enzymes
produced by the fibroblasts hastening the degradation of the
hydrogel’s polymer network structure