Title: Novel HLC-HA-CCS and PVA-CMC-PEG hydrogels for wound dressing

Biography:

Zhu, Chenhui is a professor of school of chemical engineering, Northwest University, China, Director of Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Degradable Biomedical Materials. She received her Ph.D. degree in Northwest University in 2008, studied in the department of biomedical engineering of Duke University as a visiting scholar from 2012-2013. She won the 11th Shaanxi Youth Science and Technology Award, Shaanxi Youth Science and Technology Innovation Leader Award and Xi'an Academic and Technological Leader Award. Her research area focuses on biomaterials and protein engineering. Up to now, Prof. Zhu has published over 60 papers and 2 books, holds 15 patents.
 

 

Abstract

Hydrogel is a kind of hydrophilic soft material with a three-dimensional network structure and has a broad application prospect in the field of medicine. The wound dressings to meet the clinic needs are the seeking goals of scientists. Natural biological materials have excellent biocompatibility ^{1, 2}. In our study, Human-like collagen-hyaluronic acid-carboxylated chitosan (HLC-HA-CCS) complex hydrogels crosslinked with glutamine aminotransferase (TG) are prepared for wound dressing. HA elevates the compressive stress, CCS increases the anti-deformation, HA and CCS together contribute to improve the porosities, swelling and water retention properties. Full thickness skin defect experiments show that HLC-HA-CCS hydrogels can promote wound healing in comparison with traditional ones.

  However, the mechanical properties of hydrogels made from natural materials are poor ² , and the antimicrobial, moisturizing performance as well as bacteria resistance fail to meet the requirements of wound healing. Therefore, a double-layer polyvinyl alcohol-polyethylene glycol-sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (PVA-CMC-PEG) hydrogel are prepared to solve the above problems.

  The double-layer hydrogels present a tight upper layer with smaller pore size and a loose lower layer with larger pore size, which can meet the absorption of seepage and bacteria resistance at the same time. The pore size at the longitudinal section presents a trend of gradual reduction and the two layers are bonded tightly. Furthermore, the double-layer hydrogels have a suitable water vapor transmission rate, excellent moisturizing effect, bacteria resistance ability and are non-sticky to the wound. Besides, the hydrogel have no toxic effects on cells. Full-thickness skin defect experiment shows that the double-layer PVA-CMC-PEG hydrogels canenhance wound healing greatly and would be ideal wound dressings

Figure 1.

a1 Porosity of the four HLC hydrogels; a2 pore distribution of the four HLC hydrogels; the swelling ratio of the four HLC hydrogels: b1 four hydrogels in deionized water and b2 four HLC hydrogels in physiological saline, **p < 0.01.

Figure 2.

SEM micrographs of the bi-layer hydrogels. a) Upper layer of the hydrogel with a small pore size. b) Lower layer of the hydrogel with a large pore size. c) Cross-sectional structure of the bi-layer. The scale bar is 100 μm.

Figure 3. Contrasting properties of a bi-layer hydrogel, an upper layer hydrogel, a lower layer hydrogel and a vaseline gauze. a) Water retention ability. b) WVTR. c) Protein absorption content. d) Bacterial invasion performance. The values are the mean ± SD (***p < 0.001, n = 3).