Tissue-adhesive and highly mechanical double-network hydrogel for cryopreservation and sustained release of anti-cancer drugs

• Published in: Smart materials in medicine Vol. 2; pp. 229 - 236
• Main Authors: Zeng, Liangdan, He, Jingjing, Cao, Yang, Wang, Jiaxian, Qiao, Ziwen, Jiang, Xiancai, Hou, Linxi, Zhang, Jin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 2021; KeAi Communications Co., Ltd
• Subjects: Double-network hydrogel; Lomustine cryopreservation; Low-temperature recoverability; Sustained drug release; Wet tissue-adhesive ability; Low-temperature recoverability; Lomustine cryopreservation; Sustained drug release; Double-network hydrogel; Wet tissue-adhesive ability
• ISSN: 2590-1834; 2590-1834
• DOI: 10.1016/j.smaim.2021.07.005

Applications of hydrogels served as drug carriers are severely limited by several main drawbacks of instable network structure, weak mechanical strength, shortage of tissue-adhesive ability, as well as poor anti-frozen performance, especially for some anti-cancer drugs (e.g., lomustine) those should be stored at subzero temperature to maintain their bioactivity. In the present work, a kind of hybrid polyacrylamide/alginate-CaCl2 (PAAm/Alg-Ca) based double-network (DN) hydrogel presented high tensile strength of 61.81 ​± ​5.14 ​kPa, a low water contact angle of 22.5° ​± ​0.8°, and sufficient adhesion on various wet substrates (234.56 ​± ​8.55 ​Pa). More interestingly, pH-responsive swelling behavior, excellent cold-resistance, as well as efficient recoverability at a low temperature of −20 ​°C was shown in such hydrogel. On the basis of biocompatibility result and a sustained drug release behavior using lomustine as a testing model, our proposed PAAm/Alg-Ca based DN hydrogel paves the way for development of anti-cancer drugs cryopreservation and delivery vehicle. [Display omitted] •Double-network hydrogel presents high tensile strength, a low water contact angle, and strong adhesion on wet substrates.•A pH-responsive swelling behavior, cold-resistance, and efficient recoverability at −20 °C are shown in such hydrogel.•The hydrogel shows promising potentials for cryopreservation and sustained release of anti-cancer drugs.