A highly stretchable, adhesive, and antibacterial hydrogel with chitosan and tobramycin as dynamic cross-linkers for treating the infected diabetic wound

作者：Xu, Anqi; Zhang, Nan; Su, Shixing; Shi, Hongyu; Lu, Daoqiang; Li, Xifeng; Zhang, Xin; Feng, Xin; Wen, Zhuohua; Ma, Gengwu; Huang, Mengshi; Huang, Chi; Hu, Yuqi; Yuan, Hao; Liu, Qinwen; Guan, Daogang; Wang, Jun^*; Duan, Chuanzhi^*

来源：Carbohydrate Polymers, 2024, 324: 121543.

DOI：10.1016/j.carbpol.2023.121543

• Hydrogels
• Highly stretchable
• Adhesive
• Antibacterial
• Wound healing

Diabetic wounds pose a significant challenge due to their susceptibility to bacterial infection in a high-glucose environment, which impedes the wound healing process. To address this issue, there is a pressing need to develop suitable hydrogels that can promote the regeneration of diabetic wounds in clinical practice. In this study, we designed and fabricated a highly stretchable, adhesive, transparent, and antibacterial hydrogel through a one-pot radical polymerization of N-[Tris (hydroxymethyl) methyl] acrylamide (THMA) and acrylic acid (AA), and with chitosan and the antibiotic tobramycin as the dynamic physical crosslinkers. The copolymer contains a large number of carboxyl and hydroxyl groups, which can form an interpenetrating network structure with chitosan and tobramycin through multiple dynamic non-covalent bonds. This hydrogel exhibited over 1600 % elongation through an energy dissipation mechanism and strong adhesion to various surfaces without any chemical reaction. In vivo, studies conducted on a staphylococcus aureus-infected full-thickness diabetic skin wound model demonstrated that the hydrogel loaded with tobramycin as one of the crosslinkers had a longlasting antibacterial activity and effectively accelerated wound healing. Therefore, the antibiotic-loaded adhesive hydrogel we proposed holds great promise as a treatment for bacteria-infected diabetic wounds.

• 单位
  佛山科学技术学院; 南方医科大学