Hydrogels: Properties and Applications in Biomedicine

Hydrogels are crosslinked polymer chains with three-dimensional (3D) network structures, which can absorb relatively large amounts of fluid. Because of the high water content, soft structure, and porosity of hydrogels, they closely resemble living tissues. Research in recent years shows that hydroge...

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Published inMolecules (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 27; no. 9; p. 2902
Main Authors Ho, Tzu-Chuan, Chang, Chin-Chuan, Chan, Hung-Pin, Chung, Tze-Wen, Shu, Chih-Wen, Chuang, Kuo-Pin, Duh, Tsai-Hui, Yang, Ming-Hui, Tyan, Yu-Chang
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Switzerland MDPI AG 02.05.2022
MDPI
Subjects
3D cell culture
Biological activity
drug delivery
Enzymes
Hyaluronic acid
hydrogel
Hydrogels
medical application
Physical properties
Polyethylene glycol
Polymerization
Polymers
Polyvinyl alcohol
Regenerative medicine
Review
Tissue engineering
wound dressing
3D cell culture
tissue engineering
medical application
wound dressing
drug delivery
hydrogel
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Summary:Hydrogels are crosslinked polymer chains with three-dimensional (3D) network structures, which can absorb relatively large amounts of fluid. Because of the high water content, soft structure, and porosity of hydrogels, they closely resemble living tissues. Research in recent years shows that hydrogels have been applied in various fields, such as agriculture, biomaterials, the food industry, drug delivery, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine. Along with the underlying technology improvements of hydrogel development, hydrogels can be expected to be applied in more fields. Although not all hydrogels have good biodegradability and biocompatibility, such as synthetic hydrogels (polyvinyl alcohol, polyacrylamide, polyethylene glycol hydrogels, etc.), their biodegradability and biocompatibility can be adjusted by modification of their functional group or incorporation of natural polymers. Hence, scientists are still interested in the biomedical applications of hydrogels due to their creative adjustability for different uses. In this review, we first introduce the basic information of hydrogels, such as structure, classification, and synthesis. Then, we further describe the recent applications of hydrogels in 3D cell cultures, drug delivery, wound dressing, and tissue engineering.
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These authors contributed equally as the first author to this work.
ISSN:1420-3049
1420-3049
DOI:10.3390/molecules27092902