A self-healing and injectable oxidized quaternized guar gum/carboxymethyl chitosan hydrogel with efficient hemostatic and antibacterial properties for wound dressing

Multifunctional wound dressings urgently need to be developed to meet the various needs of wound healing. In this work, we first proposed a new method about modifying the guar gum (GG) by performing a quaternization graft reaction and then oxidation. The obtained oxidized quaternized guar gum (OQGG) not only has antibacterial function due to the introduction of quaternary ammonium groups, but also can become one of the components of Schiff base hydrogels due to the presence of aldehyde groups. Therefore, we used it and carboxymethyl chitosan (CMCS) to design a hydrogel with antibacterial, hemostatic, self-repairing and injectable properties. We characterized the structure of OQGG and OQGG@CMCS hydrogels, but also evaluated the performance of the hydrogels. The results showed that GG was successfully modified to OQGG and OQGG@CMCS hydrogel was successfully prepared, and the obtained OQGG@CMCS hydrogel showed excellent antibacterial and hemostatic properties, and exhibited self-healing and injectability. In addition, cytotoxicity tests demonstrated that the OQGG@CMCS hydrogels presented good cytocompatibility. Further, the OQGG@CMCS hydrogel significantly promoted wound healing in an S. aureus-infected rat wound model. Therefore, the hydrogel has the potential to be applied as a wound dressing.

Automated summary

In this study, a multifunctional hydrogel was successfully prepared by modifying guar gum with quaternization and oxidation, showing properties such as antibacterial, hemostatic, self-repairing, and injectable capabilities. The hydrogel exhibited excellent biocompatibility and demonstrated potential in promoting wound healing in a rat wound model infected with S. aureus.