Self-Adapting Hydrogel to Improve the Therapeutic Effect in Wound-Healing

TLDR

Smart materials that respond to multiple stimuli have been widely studied, yet spontaneous adaptation to the changing internal environment of living bodies has not been reported; the dynamic Schiff‑base network of a chitosan‑based self‑healing hydrogel confers unique mobility. The study reports a dynamic‑chemistry strategy to create self‑adapting solid materials that can automatically change shape without external stimuli, mimicking organisms. The authors use dynamic Schiff‑base chemistry in a chitosan‑based hydrogel to enable autonomous shape change without external triggers. The hydrogel moves autonomously under surface tension and gravity, serves as an effective drug carrier for wound healing, and outperforms conventional delivery in a rat‑liver laceration model, demonstrating its potential as a promising biomedical material.

Abstract

Smart materials that can respond to multistimuli have been broadly studied. However, the smart materials that can spontaneously answer the ever-changing inner environment of living bodies have not been reported. Here, we report a strategy based on the dynamic chemistry to develop possible self-adapting solid materials that can automatically change shape without external stimuli, as organisms do. The self-adapting property of a chitosan-based self-healing hydrogel has been rediscovered since its dynamic Schiff-base network confers the unique mobility to that solid gel. As a result, the hydrogel can move slowly, like an octopus climbing through a narrow channel, only following the natural forces of surface tension and gravity. The fascinating self-adapting feature enables this hydrogel as an excellent drug carrier for the in vivo wound treatment. In a healing process of the rat-liver laceration, this self-adapting hydrogel demonstrated remarkable superiority over traditional drug delivery methods, suggesting the great potential of this self-adapting hydrogel as a promising new material for biomedical applications. We believe the current research revealed a possible strategy to achieve self-adapting materials and may pave the way toward the further development, study, and application of new-generation smart materials.