Skin Pigmentation‐Inspired Polydopamine Sunscreens

Abstract

Commercial sunscreens usually rely on multiple component formulas against solar irradiation, including UV filters, antioxidants, and nanomaterial matrices. While many efforts are devoted, concern has arisen that the effectiveness and safety issues of most sunscreens are largely limited by their complex formulations, photostability, and toxicity. Inspired by skin pigmentation as primary photoprotective mechanism in human body, novel sunscreen products based on polydopamine (PDA) gels, with a bioinspired protection concept and improved photoprotective capacities, were rationally designed and facilely prepared. The diverse formula of those sunscreen gels can be achieved by the use of PDA nanoparticle, a kind of naturally melanin mimics, to complex/conjugate with different polymers. The resulting PDA sunscreens are bioadhesive, water resistant, and nonskin penetration, yet can be directly removed by towel wiping. They also perform many promising features including superior UV shielding properties, high in vitro and in vivo UV protection efficiencies, nonphototoxicity, and nonirritating nature. These PDA materials in an initial proof‐of‐concept study were described and it is proposed that this class of bioinspired gels will be useful for incident UV protection where simple, safe, and efficient sunscreens are still highly desirable.

A Dual Network Hydrogel Sunscreen Based on Poly-γ-glutamic Acid/Tannic Acid Demonstrates Excellent Anti-UV, Self-Recovery, and Skin-Integration Capacities

“…Notably, Biore-treated skin also showed slight damage. Consistent with these findings, in trichrome staining analysis (Figure C,E), keratin overproduction was observed in the unprotected skin group, which can cause skin irritation or keratosis pilaris. , Conversely, the DNHS-treated group showed no detectable keratin overproduction phenomena, supporting the excellent in vivo anti-UV evaluation of the DNHS. Furthermore, DNHS demonstrated an obvious advantage over the commercial sunscreen (Biore).…”

Bioinspired polydopamine nanoparticles as efficient antioxidative and anti-inflammatory enhancers against UV-induced skin damage

“…To probe the performance of PDA NPs, we introduced PDA NPs in commercial sunscreen that is based on ZnO. In agreement with Wang et al [ 44 ] who developed three PDA nanocomposite hydrogel sunscreens with excellent UV protection efficiency and high biosafety, our PDA sunscreen could remarkably ameliorate pathological symptoms more superior than using commercial sunscreen solely in the UVR-damaged mice model. Extend to this, we deduced that PDA NPs not only could be photoprotective but also render the system of existing sunscreen more stable.…”

A Bio‐Inspired Multifunctional Hydrogel Network with Toughly Interfacial Chemistry for Dendrite‐Free Flexible Zinc Ion Battery

“…Conversely, the PAM/trehalose hydrogel fractured at 1000 % stretching, surpassing the PAM hydrogel threshold, which demonstrates the alleviation effect of PAM/trehalose hydrogel on crack propagation, enabling it to withstand more cycles and greater deformation. The as‐prepared PAM/trehalose hydrogel demonstrates superior strength (100 kPa) and elongation at break (4478 %) compared to literature‐reported values, [8,26–27] showcasing superior fault‐tolerant ability which crucial for wearable electronics and flexible devices (Figure 2j).…”