Nonswelling injectable chitosan hydrogel via UV crosslinking induced hydrophobic effect for minimally invasive tissue engineering

Injectable chitosan hydrogels exhibit excellent biological properties for application in biomedical engineering, however most of these hydrogels have limited applicability because Swelling can induce volume expansion of conventional hydrogels implanted in the body damages the surrounding tissues. Here, we report a new Non swelling pentenyl chitosan (PTL-CS) hydrogel via N-acylation reaction to graft an UV crosslinkable short hydrophobic alkyl chain (n-pentenyl groups). The incorporated pentenyl groups can be crosslinked by UV irradiation to form hydrophobic chains via combination termination, which generate strong hydrophobic effect to extrude the excess water in hydrogel, resulting in a Nonswelling state at biological temperature. Furthermore, the PTL-CS solution showed no cytotoxicity in vitro and minimally invasive treatment in vivo demonstrated the PTL-CS hydrogel no adverse effects in a rat model. The nonswelling injectable and UV crosslinkable chitosan hydrogel hold potential applications in smart biomaterials and biological engineering as well as providing a new natural hydrogel in minimally invasive tissue engineering..

Automated summary

A new nonswelling pentenyl chitosan hydrogel was developed via UV crosslinking, which maintains a nonswelling state at biological temperature. The hydrogel showed no cytotoxicity in vitro and demonstrated minimal adverse effects in a rat model. The injectable and UV crosslinkable chitosan hydrogel holds potential applications in smart biomaterials and minimally invasive tissue engineering.