Tough Gelatin Hydrogel for Tissue Engineering

Overview

Journal Adv Sci (Weinh)

Specialty Biomedical Engineering

Date 2023 Jun 24

PMID 37353916

Authors

Ximin Yuan

Zhou Zhu

Pengcheng Xia

Zhenjia Wang

Xiao Zhao

Xiao Jiang

Tianming Wang

Qing Gao

Jie Xu

Debin Shan

Bin Guo

Qingqiang Yao

Yong He

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Tough hydrogel has attracted considerable interest in various fields, however, due to poor biocompatibility, nondegradation, and pronounced compositional differences from natural tissues, it is difficult to be used for tissue regeneration. Here, a gelatin-based tough hydrogel (GBTH) is proposed to fill this gap. Inspired by human exercise to improve muscle strength, the synergistic effect is utilized to generate highly functional crystalline domains for resisting crack propagation. The GBTH exhibits excellent tensile strength of 6.67 MPa (145-fold that after untreated gelation). Furthermore, it is directly sutured to a ruptured tendon of adult rabbits due to its pronounced toughness and biocompatibility, self-degradability in vivo, and similarity to natural tissue components. Ruptured tendons can compensate for mechanotransduction by GBTH and stimulate tendon differentiation to quickly return to the initial state, that is, within eight weeks. This strategy provides a new avenue for preparation of highly biocompatible tough hydrogel for tissue regeneration.

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