University of Bordeaux, INSERM U1212, UMR CNRS 5320, F-33076 Bordeaux, France.
Biomater Sci. 2020 Oct 21;8(20):5589-5600. doi: 10.1039/d0bm01268h. Epub 2020 Sep 30.
Hydrogels are soft materials of the utmost importance in the biomedical and healthcare fields. Two approaches can be considered to obtain such biomaterials: the macromolecular one and the supramolecular one. In the first, the chemical gel is based on crosslinking while in the second the physical hydrogel is stabilized thanks to noncovalent interactions. Recently, new trends rely on smart devices able to modify their physico-chemical properties under stimulation. Such stimuli-responsive systems can react to internal (i.e. pH, redox potential, enzyme, etc.) or external (i.e. magnetic field, light, electric field, etc.) triggers leading to smart drug release and drug delivery systems, 3D scaffolds or biosensors. Even if some stimuli-responsive biomaterials are currently widely studied, other ones represent a real challenge. Among them, electro-responsive hydrogels, especially obtained via supramolecular approach, are under-developped leaving room for improvement. Indeed, currently known macromolecular electro-responsive systems are reaching some limitations related to their chemical composition, physicochemical properties, mechanical strength, processing technologies, etc. In contrast, the interest for supramolecular hydrogels has risen for the past few years suggesting that they may provide new solutions as electro-responsive soft materials. In this short review, we give a recent non exhaustive survey on macromolecular and supramolecular approaches for electro-responsive hydrogels in the biomedical field.
水凝胶在生物医学和医疗保健领域具有极其重要的地位。获得此类生物材料有两种方法：高分子方法和超分子方法。在第一种方法中，化学凝胶基于交联，而在第二种方法中，物理水凝胶通过非共价相互作用稳定。最近，新的趋势依赖于能够在刺激下改变其物理化学性质的智能设备。这种对刺激响应的系统可以对内（例如 pH 值、氧化还原电位、酶等）或外（例如磁场、光、电场等）刺激做出反应，从而实现智能药物释放和药物输送系统、3D 支架或生物传感器。尽管一些对刺激响应的生物材料目前正在广泛研究，但其他材料代表了真正的挑战。其中，电响应水凝胶，尤其是通过超分子方法获得的水凝胶，开发不足，有很大的改进空间。事实上，目前已知的高分子电响应系统在其化学成分、物理化学性质、机械强度、加工技术等方面都存在一些局限性。相比之下，超分子水凝胶在过去几年中的兴趣有所增加，这表明它们可能作为电响应软材料提供新的解决方案。在这篇简短的综述中，我们对生物医学领域中用于电响应水凝胶的高分子和超分子方法进行了最新的非详尽调查。
