Bioinspired hydrogels have demonstrated
multiple superiorities
over traditional wound dressings for wound healing applications. However,
the fabrication of bioinspired hydrogel-based wound dressings with
desired functionalities always requires multiple successive steps,
time-consuming processes, and/or sophisticated protocols, plaguing
their clinical applications. Here, a facile one-pot strategy is developed
to prepare a skin-inspired multifunctional hydrogel within 30 min
by incorporating elastin (an essential functional component of the
dermal extracellular matrix), tannic acid, and chitosan into the covalently
cross-linked poly(acrylamide) network through noncovalent interactions.
The resulting hydrogel exhibits a Young’s modulus (ca. 36 kPa)
comparable to that of human skin, a high elongation-at-break (ca.
1550%), a satisfactory tensile strength (ca. 61 kPa), and excellent
elastic self-restorability, enabling the hydrogel to synchronously
and conformally deform with human skin when used as wound dressings.
Importantly, the hydrogel displays a self-adhesive property to skin
tissues with an appropriate bonding strength (ca. 55 kPa measured
on intact porcine skin), endowing the hydrogel with the ability to
rapidly self-adhere to intact human skin, sealing the wound surface
and also easily being removed without residue left or trauma caused
to the skin. The hydrogel also possesses remarkable antibacterial
activity, antioxidant capability, and hemocompatibility. All of these
collective beneficial properties enable the hydrogel to significantly
accelerate the wound healing process, outperforming the commercial
wound dressings.