Antibacterial broad-spectrum dendritic/gellan gum hybrid hydrogels with rapid shape-forming and self-healing for wound healing application.

Treating wound infections has been a difficult task ever since pathogenic bacteria started to develop resistance to common antibiotics. The present study develops hybrid hydrogels based on the formation of a polyelectrolyte complex between the anionic charges of dopamine-functionalized Gellan Gum (GG-DA) and the cationic moieties of the TMP-G2-alanine dendrimer. The hydrogels thus obtained can be doubly crosslinked with CaCl2 , obtaining solid hydrogels. Or, by oxidizing dopamine to GG-DA, possibly causing further interactions such as Shiff Base and Michael addition to take place, hydrogels called injectables can be obtained. The latter have shear-thinning and self-healing properties (efficiency up to 100%). Human dermal fibroblasts (HDF), human epidermal keratinocytes (HaCaT), and mouse monocyte cells (RAW 264.7), after incubation with hydrogels, in most cases show cell viability up to 100%. Hydrogels exhibit adhesive behavior on various substrates, including porcine skin. At the same time, the dendrimer served to crosslink the hydrogels and endow them with excellent broad-spectrum microbial eradication activity within four hours, evaluated using S. aureus 2569 and E. coli 178. Using the same GG-DA/TMP-G2-alanine ratios hybrid hydrogels with tunable properties and potential for wound dressing applications can be produced. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.