PEG-grafted chitosan as an injectable thermosensitive hydrogel for sustained protein release

Thermosensitive polymer hydrogels that undergo a sol-to-gel transition in response to temperature changes are of great interest in therapeutic delivery and tissue engineering as injectable depot systems. A chitosan-based, injectable thermogel was prepared by grafting an appropriate amount of PEG onto the chitosan backbone and studied for drug release in vitro using bovine serum albumin (BSA) as a model protein. When more than approximately 40...