Hydrogels as wound dressings have
received great attention in recent
years. It is highly important yet challenging to develop hydrogel
dressings that are biocompatible and that can promote wound healing
by lowering the risk of inflammatory responses. In this work, we designed
and prepared zwitterionic dextran-based hydrogels using carboxybetaine
dextran (CB-Dex) and sulfobetaine dextran (SB-Dex) as raw materials,
respectively. The efficacy of CB-Dex and SB-Dex hydrogels in promoting
wound recovery was evaluated using a mouse skin wound model. Results
suggested that the zwitterionic dextran wound dressings showed a faster
healing rate than natural dextran hydrogel and a commercial wound
dressing (Duoderm film) due to their excellent protein resistance
and capacity to scavenge free hydroxyl radicals. In addition, both
CB-Dex and SB-Dex hydrogel wound dressings showed excellent cytocompatibility
with NIH3T3 and L929 cells, as well as antibacterial adhesion against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia
coli. Furthermore, both zwitterionic hydrogels demonstrated
self-healing properties and can be stretched to adapt to irregular
full-thickness wound beds. More importantly, they can be removed from
the wound site painlessly by washing with normal saline. Overall,
this work provided a new pathway to fabricate multifunctional polysaccharide
hydrogels for wound treatment and pain relief when changing wound
dressings.
Zwitterionic sulfobetaine (SB) and carboxybetaine (CB) have been extensively investigated for their noticeable antifouling properties. Both SB and CB have cationic and anionic groups in the molecule, but they differ in negatively charged groups. Molecular simulations have been conducted to investigate the different properties induced by structure changes. However, few studies have focused on the differences between SB and CB materials, especially zwitterionic polysaccharides. Two zwitterionic sulfobetaine and carboxybetaine dextran hydrogels were designed and used as models to compare their properties. Results showed that the equilibrium swelling ratios of the SB-DEX hydrogels were much higher than CB-DEX ones, and larger interior pores were observed in the SB-DEX hydrogels due to their higher hydrophilicity. The rheological storage modulus of the SB-DEX hydrogels was lower than that of CB-DEX ones as a result of higher water content of SB-DEX. These results were consistent with molecular modeling. Additionally, both CB-DEX and SB-DEX had remarkable biocompatibilities, and the in vitro release studies showed that the SB-DEX and CB-DEX hydrogels released DOX in a sustained manner under acidic condition (pH 5.0), indicating their promise as an effective drug-delivery system.
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