Abstract: A porous biological carrier was prepared by the method of eluting stent with lignin-carbohydrate complexes (LCC) isolated from ginkgo wood. Fourier transform infrared spectrometer(FT-IR), high performance liquid chromatograph(HPLC), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and scanning electron microscope (SEM) were applied to elucidate the composition, chemical structure and morphology of the biological carrier. The results indicate that a biological carrier with excellent performance can be prepared with gingko LCC as raw material. Not only the guaiacyl lignin subunits existe in this biological carrier, but also the galactose and mannose with high biological compatibility to human hepatocytes are found to be 3.30% and 21.94%, respectively. The porosity of prepared porous scaffold is more than 60% with average pore size of 130 μm. The carriers were used to culture human hepatocytes. The results show that human hepatocytes can grow successfully on carriers. Furthermore, the human hepatocytes on carriers proliferate rapidly and show a high metabolic activity by determination of human albumin and glucose metabolism. These interesting results indicate that porous biological carrier prepared with gingko LCC have an excellent biocompatibility.

Key words: lignin-carbohydrate complexes, porous carrier, human hepatocytes, culture, biocompability