Bottlebrush inspired injectable hydrogel for rapid prevention of postoperative and recurrent adhesion

• DOI: 10.1016/j.bioactmat.2022.02.015
• Publication Date: 2022-02-21T13:22:26Z
• Authors: Jushan Gao; Jinpeng Wen; Datao Hu; Kailai Liu; Yuchen Zhang; Xinxin Zhao; Ke Wang
• Keywords: Bottlebrush polymer; 0303 health sciences; Postoperative adhesion prevention; QH301-705.5; Antifouling; Article; MMT; 3. Good health; 03 medical and health sciences; Rapid healing; TA401-492; Biology (General); Materials of engineering and construction. Mechanics of materials

Postsurgical adhesion is a common clinic disease induced by surgical trauma, accompanying serious subsequent complications. Current non-surgical approaches of drugs treatment and biomaterial barrier administration only show limited prevention effects and couldn't effectively promote peritoneum repair. Herein, inspired by bottlebrush, a novel self-fused, antifouling, and injectable hydrogel is fabricated by the free-radical polymerization in aqueous solution between the methacrylate hyaluronic acid (HA-GMA) and N-(2-hydroxypropyl) methacrylamide (HPMA) monomer without any chemical crosslinkers, termed as H-HPMA hydrogel. The H-HPMA hydrogel can be tuned to perform excellent self-fused properties and suitable abdominal metabolism time. Intriguingly, the introduction of the ultra-hydrophilic HPMA chains to the H-HPMA hydrogel affords an unprecedented antifouling capability. The HPMA chains establish a dense hydrated layer that rapidly prevents the postsurgical adhesions and recurrent adhesions after adhesiolysis in vivo. The H-HPMA hydrogel can repair the peritoneal wound of the rat model within 5 days. Furthermore, an underlying mechanism study reveals that the H-HPMA hydrogel significantly regulated the mesothelial-to-mesenchymal transition (MMT) process dominated by the TGF-β-Smad2/3 signal pathway. Thus, we developed a simple, effective, and available approach to rapidly promote peritoneum regeneration and prevent peritoneal adhesion and adhesion recurrence after adhesiolysis, offering novel design ideas for developing biomaterials to prevent peritoneal adhesion.