Issue 13, 2024

Self-healing, injectable chitosan-based hydrogels: structure, properties and biological applications

Abstract

Conventional biomaterials suffer from mechanical stresses and biochemical degradation, compromising performance and structural integrity. Hydrogels are three-dimensional networks that hold a huge quantity of water but can retain their internal structure due to chemical and physical crosslinking. Unlike self-healing injectable hydrogels, they lack the capacity to repair their inherent structure after damage due to the absence of reversible bonds, but these self-healing injectable hydrogels can withstand and reverse damage accumulation. The recoverability of self-healing injectable hydrogels stems from the presence of reversible chemical bonds within their structure. Schiff base linking involves reversible imine or hydrazone bond formation through reactions between aldehydes or ketones, commonly used in chitosan-based hydrogels. Rheological and morphological characterization help determine the precise structure, mechanical strength and bond types. Moreover, the capacity to hold water in hydrogels can closely mimic the extracellular matrix (ECM). Incorporating various polymers and crosslinkers enhances mechanical strength and biocompatibility. Their porous and hydrophilic nature allows for versatile applications, such as loading living cells, drugs, growth factors, and miRNA, promoting cell proliferation and adhesion. The injectability of these hydrogels facilitates precise administration through narrow syringes, enabling rapid local confinement and reducing off-target side effects. Through 3D bioprinting, the injectability can be proven and through experimental studies conducted in vitro using dissolution tests or in vivo on rodents, the sustained drug release capabilities of these hydrogels can be determined. Chitosan-based self-healing injectable hydrogels possess remarkable properties that find applications in tissue-engineered scaffolds, drug delivery, wound dressings, and cancer treatment.

Graphical abstract: Self-healing, injectable chitosan-based hydrogels: structure, properties and biological applications

Article information

Article type
Review Article
Submitted
11 fev 2024
Accepted
10 jun 2024
First published
12 jun 2024
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Mater. Adv., 2024,5, 5365-5393

Self-healing, injectable chitosan-based hydrogels: structure, properties and biological applications

M. E. J., R. Solanki, M. Dhanka, P. Thareja and D. Bhatia, Mater. Adv., 2024, 5, 5365 DOI: 10.1039/D4MA00131A

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements