Preparation and the hemostatic property study of porous gelatin microspheres both in vitro and in vivo

Abstract Rapid hemostasis is crucial to saving the lives of traumatic patients in emergency medical treatment. To improve the hemostatic performance of the gelatin microspheres (GMs) in vivo and in vitro, in the study, porous gelatin microspheres (PGMs) were prepared through water-in-oil emulsion method combined with vacuum freeze-drying after cross-linking with glutaraldehyde and prefreeze in liquid nitrogen. Owing to the porous structure and rough surface, the obtained PGMs were effective to inducing red blood cells aggregation and promoting fibrin generation, which led to improved hemostatic potential than GMs in blood coagulation time, whole blood clotting rate, and the hemostatic efficiency of rabbit liver wound and ear vein cut models tests. The potent hemostatic effect of the PGMs could be attributed to the synergistic effects of the physiological blood coagulation activated by negatively charged surface and physical barriers reinforced by fibrin. Moreover, PGMs with high water absorption rate and porous structure showed better hemostatic performance than commercial hemostatic powder (chitosan hemostasis power and Yunnan Baiyao) in vitro and in vivo. Cytotoxicity tests with bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells of murine showed that PGMs with excellent cytocompatibility were conducive to cell proliferation. Therefore, it could be concluded that PGMs were more suitable for rapid hemostasis than GMs and had a great potential for hemostatic applications.