3. Resultsanddiscussion
3.1. CharacterizationofthemorphologyofCAH
The CAH produced in this study gels when the tempera- ture decreases from 50◦C to 37◦C, changing from transparent to opaque (see Fig. 1). The thermoresponsive character of CAH is attributed to agarose, that undergoes through a reversible gelling process without losing its mechanical and thermal properties. In the literature it is described that at high temperatures polymeric chains have a random coil conformation. By lowering temperature they start to form double helices and aggregates that act as physical junctions of the gels
When tissue engineering applications are envisioned, cell adhe- sion to biomaterials is a crucial prerequisite to allow tissue regeneration Among the different factors affecting cell adhesion, materials sur- face charge, morphology and porosity are considered the most relevant.
SEM images presented in Fig. 2 show that CAH has an irregular surface and a porous interconnected structure, with pore diameters (90–400 m), that allow a good cell penetration and proliferation in contact with hydrogel, as well as nutrients and oxygen diffusion into the bulk of the matrix