Enzyme-sensing chitosan hydrogels.

We report on a chitosan hydrogel-based platform for the detection of enzymes, which is compatible with the implementation in infection-sensing wound dressings. Thin films of the established wound dressing biopolymer chitosan were functionalized with a fluorogenic substrate, which is released upon enzymatic degradation, resulting in a pronounced increase in fluorescence emission intensity. In this first model study, the fluorogenic substrate alanyl-alanyl-phenylalanine-7-amido-4-methylcoumarin (AAP-AMC) was covalently conjugated via amide bond formation to chitosan and was shown to facilitate the detection of the serine protease α-chymotrypsin. Systematic investigations established the dependence of hydrogel thickness and substrate loading on the hydrogel preparation conditions, as well as the dependence of the rate of the reaction on the initial enzyme concentration and the loading of AAP-AMC in the hydrogel. The initial release rate of the fluorophore 7-AMC was found to be linear with enzyme concentration and substrate loading and was independent of hydrogel thickness. Under optimized conditions the hydrogel reports the presence of α-chymotrypsin in <5 min with a limit of detection of ≤10 nM. This generic approach, which can be adapted to detect different kinds of enzymes by using appropriate fluorogenic or chromogenic substrates, is highly interesting for targeting the detection of specific pathogenic bacteria, e.g., in wound dressings.