A rapid-crosslinking antimicrobial hydrogel with enhanced antibacterial capabilities for improving wound healing
Xi Zhang, Wanxin Li, Genying Wei, Yuling Yan, Ruitao He, Yan Wang, Daoyuan Chen, Xiaofei Qin
Abstract
One of the main reasons impeding wound healing is wound infection caused by bacterial colonization with a continuous stage of inflammation. Traditional wound treatments like gauze are being replaced by tissue adhesives with strong wet tissue adhesion and biocompatibility. Herein, a fast-crosslinking hydrogel is developed to achieve both strong antimicrobial properties and excellent biocompatibility. In this study, a simple and non-toxic composite hydrogel was prepared by the Schiff base reaction between the aldehyde group of 2,3,4-trihydroxybenzaldehyde (TBA) and the amino group of ε -Poly- L -lysine (EPL). Subsequently, a succession of experiments toward this new hydrogel including structure characterization, antimicrobial properties, cell experiment and wound healing were applied. The results of the experiments show that the EPL-TBA hydrogel not only exhibited excellent contact-active antimicrobial activities against Gram-negative bacteria Escherichia coli ( E. coil ) and Gram-positive Bacteria Staphylococcus aureus ( S. aureus ), but also inhibited the biofilm formation. More importantly, the EPL-TBA hydrogel promoted the wound healing with low cytotoxicity in vivo . These findings indicate that the EPL-TBA hydrogel has a promising use as a wound dressing in the bacterial infection prevention and wounds healing acceleration.