Curcumin-crosslinked acellular bovine pericardium for the application of calcification inhibition heart valves

Glutaraldehyde (GA) crosslinked bovine or porcine pericardium tissues exhibit high cell toxicity and calcification in the construction of bioprosthetic valves, which accelerate the failure of valve leaflet and motivate the exploration for alternatives. Polyphenols, including curcumin, procyanidin and quercetin etc., have showed great calcification inhibition potential in crosslinking collagen and elastin scaffolds. Herein, we developed an innovative phenolic fixing technique by using curcumin as the crosslinking reagent for valvular materials. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR) assessments confirmed the hydrogen bond between curcumin and acellular bovine pericardium. Importantly, the calcification inhibition capability of the curcumin crosslinked bovine pericardium was proved by dramatically reduced Ca2+ content in the curcumin fixed group in in vitro assay, the juvenile rat subcutaneous implants model, as well as osteogenic differentiation model. In addition, results showed that the curcumin-fixed bovine pericardium exhibited better performance in aspect of mechanical performance, hemocompatibility and cytocompatibility, in comparison with GA group and commercialized product. Collectively, we demonstrated that curcumin was a feasible crosslinking reagent to fix acellular bovine pericardium, which showed a great potential for biomedical applications, especially in cardiovascular biomaterials with calcification inhibition capacity.