Fabrication and characterization of chitosan microcarrier for hepatocyte culture

Using chitosan as raw materials, a suitable size (300-500 mu m) of porous microcarrier was fabricated by suspension crosslinking and lyophilizing method, which made the carrier has an average pore size of 50 mu m and 86% porosity. The microcarrier was modified with lactose and maltose respectively. Various factors that influenced the preparation of microcarrier were studied and the reaction conditions were optimized. Rat hepatocytes cultured on modified microcarrier retained a spherical shape which is similar to those in vivo and formed aggregates. The metabolic activities of cells on lactose-modified were higher than those on maltose-modified microcarrier. The highest albumin secretion reached 54.8 mu g/10(6) cells/d, and the highest urea synthesis reached 4.65 mu mol/10(6) cells/d, which may be promoted by the formation of cellular aggregates. In conclusion, lactose-modified porous microcarrier is promising scaffold for hepatocytes culture.