Engineering a highly elastic bioadhesive for sealing soft and dynamic tissues

Abstract

Injured tissues often require immediate closure to restore the normal functionality of the organ. In most cases, injuries are associated with trauma or various physical surgeries where different adhesive hydrogel materials are applied to close the wounds. However, these materials are typically toxic, have low elasticity, and lack strong adhesion especially to the wet tissues. In this study, a stretchable composite hydrogel consisting of gelatin methacrylol catechol (GelMAC) with ferric ions, and poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) was developed. The engineered material could adhere to the wet tissue surfaces through the chemical conjugation of catechol and methacrylate groups to the gelatin backbone. Moreover, the incorporation of PEGDA enhanced the elasticity of the bioadhesives. Our results showed that the physical properties and adhesion of the hydrogels could be tuned by changing the ratio of GelMAC/PEGDA. In addition, the in vitro toxicity tests confirmed the biocompatibility of the engineered bioadhesives.Finally, using an ex vivo lung incision model, we showed the potential application of the developed bioadhesives for sealing elastic tissues.

Bioinspired gelatin based sticky hydrogel for diverse surfaces in burn wound care

“…Such soft wound dressing can be beneficial for treating burn wounds since the stickiness of the hydrogel is not extreme adhesive and tough. For many marketed gelatin-based sealants, tissue adhesives can be beneficial for tissue repairs 1 , 8 , 18 . Such tissue injuries call for immediate attention to restore standard organ functionality.…”

“…Such tissue injuries call for immediate attention to restore standard organ functionality. In major injuries associated with trauma or surgeries, tissue adhesives are expected to be strong, robust, elastic, non-toxic and perform diverse surface adhesion 8 .…”

“…They exhibit swelling when exposed to water, especially since the human body has water as a major component and hydrogels can contain high volumes of water. Thus, allowing them to be an excellent candidate for various biomedical uses, like tissue engineering, drug delivery, self-healing materials, biosensors, and hemostatic bandages 8 , 9 .…”

A Cohesive Shear-Thinning Biomaterial for Catheter-Based Minimally Invasive Therapeutics

“…The stained cells were imaged for live cells (calcein-AM, green fluorescence excitation/emission 495 nm/515 nm) and dead cells (ethidium homodimer-1, red fluorescence excitation/emission 495 nm/635 nm) using an inverted fluorescence microscope (Axio Observer 5, Zeiss, Germany). The cell viability was quantified based on five randomly selected areas of each well using the ImageJ software 42 (version 1.52e, USA).…”

Designing a Nitro-Induced Sutured Biomacromolecule to Engineer Electroconductive Adhesive Hydrogels

“…Physical appearance along with the flexibility of the engineered hydrogel upon mechanical perturbation (twisting, knot formation and stretching) is shown in Figure e. Although, in most of the cases, the gelatin backbone formed brittle and nonstretchable biomaterials, ,, the robust and dynamic molecular framework of S-nCAGE, comprised of dense covalent and noncovalent interactions, enabled twisting (Figure e-i–v) and knot formation (Figure e-vi), followed by manual stretching. Elastic deformations of S-nCAGE hydrogels were further characterized with a compression test, which showed a maximum Young modulus over ∼120 kPa (Figure f), mimicking the mechanics of various biological tissues.…”