Human Albumin‐Based Hydrogels for Their Potential Xeno‐Free Microneedle Applications

Abstract

Nowadays, hydrogels-based microneedles (MNs) have attracted a great interest owing to their outstanding qualities for biomedical applications. For the fabrication of hydrogels-based microneedles as tissue engineering scaffolds and drug delivery carriers, various biomaterials have been tested. They are required to feature tunable physiochemical properties, biodegradability, biocompatibility, nonimmunogenicity, high drug loading capacity, and sustained drug release. Among biomaterials, human proteins are the most ideal biomaterials for fabrication of hydrogels-based MNs; however, they are mechanically weak and poorly processible. To the best of the knowledge, there are no reports of xeno-free human protein-based MNs so far. Here, human albumin-based hydrogels and microneedles for tissue engineering and drug delivery by using relatively new processible human serum albumin methacryloyl (HSAMA) are engineered. The resultant HSAMA hydrogels display tunable mechanical properties, biodegradability, and good biocompatibility. Moreover, the xeno-free HSAMA microneedles display a sustained drug release profile and significant mechanical strength to penetrate the model skin. In vitro, they also show good biocompatibility and anticancer efficacy. Sustainable processible human albumin-based biomaterials may be employed as a xeno-free platform in vivo for tissue engineering and drug delivery in clinical trials in the future.

Research progress on albumin-based hydrogels: Properties, preparation methods, types and its application for antitumor-drug delivery and tissue engineering

“…In addition, the ordered ß-sheet arrangement enhances the synergistic effect between amino acids (Bhattacharya et al, 2014;Mohammadian and Madadlou, 2016;Maciążek-Jurczyk et al, 2020). There are numerous drug-binding sites on albumin, two main drug-binding sites for albumin are Sudlow site I and Sudlow site II, and albumin can bind more drugs when these two sites are sufficiently exposed (Rong et al, 2022;Bercea et al, 2023) Biological properties Low allergenicity Protein amyloid fibrils are derived from natural proteins, which are more biocompatible and have a lower probability of causing allergic reactions (Willbold et al, 2021). Amyloid fibrils can be used as building blocks for novel albumin-based hydrogel materials that are biocompatible, low cost and hypoallergenic (Diaz and Missirlis, 2022) High biological activity Compared to protein monomers, some amyloid fibrils have stronger antioxidant and antibacterial activity.…”

“…In this section, we focus on albumin hydrogels for antitumor drug delivery, and the properties of amyloid fibrils and the advantages of their application in albumin-based hydrogels are also described ( Table 2 ). In general, the tensile strength of albumin-based hydrogels is in the range of tens to hundreds kPa, while their compressive strength is in the range of hundreds kPa to even tens MPa ( Zhou et al, 2018 ; Rong et al, 2022 ). Albumin-based hydrogels are similar to most protein-based hydrogels in that they have a porous-mesh structure, a high water-retention capacity, a high drug-loading capacity, and the ability to carry various types of drugs ( Chander et al, 2021 ; Kong et al, 2023 ).…”

3D Printing of Biodegradable Polymeric Microneedles for Transdermal Drug Delivery Applications

“…MNs are generally categorized into solid MNs, coated MNs, hollow MNs, dissolvable MNs, and hydrogel MNs [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ]. Applications of MNs include transdermal drug delivery [ 16 , 17 ], vaccine delivery [ 18 , 19 , 20 ], cosmetic [ 21 , 22 ], disease diagnostics [ 23 ], tissue engineering [ 24 , 25 ], and therapeutic applications. With the increase in the demand for healthcare applications and services, the market size of medical devices was about $600 billion in 2022 and is estimated to reach above $950 billion by 2031 [ 26 ].…”

Hydrogel-based treatments for spinal cord injuries

“…Biomedical hydrogel materials can be synthetic or natural. Hydrogels used in tissue engineering are biocompatible and have antimicrobial properties; this facilitates tissue repair and integration [ [10] , [11] , [12] ]. For SCI repair hydrogels, soft and flexible properties and high conductivity are ideal [ 13 ].…”