Self-healing and anti-oxidative mucus-inspired hydrogel

Abstract

Natural mucus-inspired hydrogels have recently garnered significant attention in the fields of drug delivery and tissue engineering. Herein, we successfully prepared mucin-based hydrogels with self-repairing capability and antioxidant activity by employing rational material design principles. By harnessing Bigineli multicomponent reaction and free radical polymerization, antioxidant dihydropyrimidinone (DHPM) and phenylboronic acid (PBA) groups were facilely integrated onto a zwitterionic copolymer (denoted as PMPD). Furthermore, leveraging the abundant glycans present on mucin allowed for dynamic cross-linking through phenylboronic ester bonds with PBA moieties of PMPD to fabricate PM hydrogels. The dynamic nature of phenylboronic ester endowed PM hydrogels with excellent properties such as self-healing, injectable, and self-adaptable. Moreover, owing to the presence of DHPM antioxidant groups along with intrinsic antioxidant activity of mucin, PM hydrogels showed exceptional efficacy in scavenging free radicals. Additionally, PM hydrogel, which was prepared using natural mucin biopolymer and PMPD copolymer mimicking cell membrane structure, showed favorable cytocompatibility. Therefore, our current study represents a novel design strategy for multifunctional mucus-inspired hydrogels that hold promising potential for biomedical applications.