as wound dressings. [2][3][4] Cellulose sulfates (CS) are well soluble in water and are more susceptible for enzymatic degradation compared to native cellulose. [5] CS have been used in biotechnology, for example, for encapsulation of enzymes and cells. [5] Moreover, it was observed in recent studies that CS possess a similar bioactivity like heparin with regard to inhibition of coagulation, but also when interacting with cytokines that regulate growth and differentiation of cells . [6][7][8] More specifically, it was observed that particularly regioselective sulfation was effective in increasing the binding of CS to the growth factors (GF) FGF-2 and BMP-2 that are related to mitogenic or angiogenic and osteogenic activities, respectively. [8][9][10] In these studies, it was also shown that CS possess a protecting effect on GF stabilizing them against proteolytic digestion by enzymes, which is one explanation for the bioactivity of CS. [11] Since CS represent polyelectrolytes, they have been used for the formation of bioactive surface coatings that guide adhesion and growth of cells using the layerby-layer technique complexing them with chitosan. [12] These observations show that CS possess a wide range of bioactivity that makes them interesting materials for several medical applications in making blood compatible coatings of hemodialysis membranes, coatings of solid implants or tissue engineering scaffolds, but also as components for formation of hydrogels or bioprinting.
Sulfated cellulose (CS) represents an interesting biopolymer due to bioactivity comparable to heparin. However, use of CS for making surface coatings or hydrogels requires the presence of reactive groups for covalent reactions.Here, an approach is presented to oxidize cellulose sulfates for subsequent cross-linking reactions with amino groups to form imine bonds. Cellulose is sulfated by direct sulfation or acetosulfation, followed by a Malaprade oxidation. The CS obtained is characterized by elemental analysis and 13 C-NMR spectroscopy. The resulting oxidized cellulose sulfates (oxCS) have different degrees of sulfation ranging from 0.79 to 1.13 and oxidation degrees from 0.18 to 0.34, but also different mass average molecular mass (M W ). Toxicity studies are carried out with mouse 3T3 fibroblasts exposed to aqueous solutions of oxCS. The results show that all oxCS are non-toxic at lower concentrations (0.5 mg mL −1 ), but with both increasing degree of oxidation and concentrations, toxic effects are observed particularly for acetosulfated and lesser for direct sulfated oxCS, which is related to a decrease in the M W of the products. It is concluded that oxCS obtained by direct sulfation with M W above 70 kDa may represent a biocompatible material for the applications suggested above.The ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can be found under https://doi.