Injectable, self-healing, antibacterial and hemostatic N, O-Carboxymethyl chitosan/oxidized chondroitin sulfate composite hydrogel for wound dressing

Abstract Biodegradable and injectable hydrogels derived from natural polysaccharides have attracted extensive attention in biomedical applications due to their minimal invasiveness and ability to accommodate the irregular wound surfaces. In this work, we report the development of an in-situ injectable, antibacterial, hemostatic, and biocompatible hydrogel derived from the composite of N, O-carboxymethyl chitosan (N,O-CMC) and oxidized chondroitin sulfate (OCS), which did not require any chemical crosslinking. The N,O-CMC/OCS hydrogel could be readily produced under physiological conditions by varying the N,O-CMC to OCS ratio, relying on the Schiff base reaction between the -NH- functional group of N,O-CMC and the -CHO functional group of OCS. The results shown that the N,O-CMC2/OCS1 hydrogel has relatively longer gelation time (133 s) and stable performance. The viability of NIH-3 T3 cells and HUVECs cultured with N, O-CMC2/OCS1 hydrogel extract was roughly 85% which demonstrate its lower cell toxicity. Besides, the N,O-CMC2/OCS1 hydrogel showed excellent antibacterial properties due to the inherent antibacterial ability of N,O-CMC. Importantly, the N,O-CMC/OCS hydrogel tightly adhered to the biological tissue and demonstrated excellent in vivo hemostatic performance. Our work describing an injectable, antibacterial, and hemostatic hydrogel derived from polysaccharides will likely hold good potential in serving as an enabling wound dressing material.