An injectable, self-healing, polysaccharide-based antioxidative hydrogel for wound healing

Abstract

Advanced treatment of chronic wounds is critical to maintaining the physical and mental health of patients and improving their quality of life. Consequently, wound dressings with multifunctional properties are highly desired to achieve high wound closure effectiveness in chronic wound healing clinical applications. Therefore, an antioxidative dynamic hydrogel composed of aldehyde functionalised hyaluronic acid (HA-CHO) and disulfide functionalised chondroitin sulfate (CS-DTP) was designed. A disulfide moiety was utilised to functionalise chondroitin sulfate to introduce antioxidative functionality to the hydrogel scaffold. The dynamic covalent chemistry of the hydrazone network, which forms between the aldehyde and hydrazide functional groups, provides the hydrogel system with the desired properties of in situ rapid gelation and self-healing. The functional group content, rheology, self-healing, responsive degradation rate, ROS scavenging activity and cell biocompatibility of the hydrogels were characterised. Overall, this work demonstrates the facile preparation of a new dynamic hydrogel system, presenting a promising solution for wound care therapy as an antioxidative wound dressing.