Department of Maxillofacial Surgery , Lausanne University Hospital , CH-1011 Lausanne , Switzerland.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2018 Nov 14;10(45):38692-38699. doi: 10.1021/acsami.8b10735. Epub 2018 Oct 30.
Despite the development of hydrogels with high mechanical properties, insufficient adhesion between these materials and biological surfaces significantly limits their use in the biomedical field. By controlling toughening processes, we designed a composite double-network hydrogel with ∼90% water content, which creates a dissipative interface and robustly adheres to soft tissues such as cartilage and meniscus. A double-network matrix composed of covalently cross-linked poly(ethylene glycol) dimethacrylate and ionically cross-linked alginate was reinforced with nanofibrillated cellulose. No tissue surface modification was needed to obtain high adhesion properties of the developed hydrogel. Instead, mechanistic principles were used to control interfacial crack propagation. Comparing to commercial tissue adhesives, the integration of the dissipative polymeric network on the soft tissue surfaces allowed a significant increase in the adhesion strength, such as ∼130 kPa for articular cartilage. Our findings highlight the significant role of controlling hydrogel structure and dissipation processes for toughening the interface. This research provides a promising path to the development of highly adhesive hydrogels for tissues repair.
尽管已经开发出具有高机械性能的水凝胶，但这些材料与生物表面之间的附着力不足，极大地限制了它们在生物医学领域的应用。通过控制增韧过程，我们设计了一种具有约 90%含水量的复合双网络水凝胶，它可以形成耗散界面，并能牢固地黏附在软骨和半月板等软组织上。由共价交联的聚乙二醇二甲基丙烯酸酯和离子交联的海藻酸钠组成的双网络基质用纳米原纤化纤维素增强。开发的水凝胶具有高附着力，而无需对组织表面进行任何修饰。相反，我们使用机械原理来控制界面裂纹的扩展。与商业组织粘合剂相比，将耗散聚合物网络集成到软组织表面可以显著提高黏附强度，例如对于关节软骨的黏附强度约为 130kPa。我们的研究结果强调了控制水凝胶结构和耗散过程对于增强界面的重要作用。这项研究为开发用于组织修复的高附着力水凝胶提供了一个有前景的途径。
