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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2021 Aug 1.
Published in final edited form as: Adv Healthc Mater. 2020 Mar 8;9(15):e1901580. doi: 10.1002/adhm.201901580

Figure 3.

Figure 3.

Effects of decellularization process on the mechanical properties of NICE hydrogels and hMSCs viability on both NICE and bNICE scaffolds. (A) Representative stress–strain response of scaffolds undergoing cyclic compression to 70% strain. Analysis on the average compressive modulus and toughness (n=3, student’s t-test, p<0.05) demonstrated a decrease in response to the decellularization process. (B) Live/dead staining of hMSCs present on scaffolds demonstrated an abundance of live cells and sparsely distributed dead cells. Cell viability 48 hr post-seeding was 93.9% for bare scaffolds, while the bNICE scaffolds demonstrated cell viability of 98.2%. A two-tailed student’s t-test analysis established that the difference in viability was statistically significant (n=3, student’s t-test p<0.05). (C) No significant effect on swelling was observed due to the bioconditioning or decellularization process. (D) A significant increase in cell density was observed between days 8 and 21 on NICE scaffolds (n=3, student’s t-test p<0.05). No significant difference was observed on the bNICE scaffolds.