Biocompatibility and biodegradation of poly(hydroxybutyrate)/poly(ethylene glycol) blend films

Using chloroform as co-solvent, a series of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) and polyethylene glycol (PEG) blend materials with different ratio ranging from 80: 20 (wt%) to 20:80 (wt%) were prepared by solution blend. The blood-compatibility was evaluated by means of platelet clotting time test and exploring its morphological changes. The results showed that PEG played an important role in resisting platelet adhesion. With the increased addition of PEG, the clotting times became longer and the number of platelet adhesion decreased apparently. All platelets were in discrete state, no pseudopodium had been found and no collective phenomenon had been happened. The cell-compatibility was evaluated via Chinese Hamster Lung (CHL) fibroblast cultivation in vitro. The cells cultured on the matrix spread and proliferated well. With the increase of PEG content in the blend films, the number of live cells became more and more. These results indicated that PHB exhibited satisfying cell-compatibility and the addition of PEG also could improve the cell-compatibility of PHB. The biodegradation experiment indicated that the degradation of PHB/PEG was accelerated by enzyme in vitro and the blending of PEG was favorable to degradation. (C) 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers.