Study on the injectable cationic hydrogel for heparin delivery

Abstract

In recent years, injectable cationic hydrogels have been widely studied towards biomedical applications because of their potential performance in drug/cell delivery. In this study, we introduce a simple and organic solvent-free method to prepare tyramine-tetronic via activation of four terminal hydroxyl groups of tetronic, tyramine conjugate into the activated product to obtain Tetronic ±TA (TTe ) and Denrimer PAMAM G3.0 was functionalized with Hydroxyphenyl acetic acid (HPA) by use of carbodiimide 1 - ethyl-3-(3-(dimethylamino)propyl)carbodiimide (EDC) coupling agent to obtain PAMAM - HPA. The polymers were well characterized by - 1 HNMR. The aqueous TTe and PAMAM-HPA copolymer solution rapidly formed hydrogel in the presence of horseradishperoxidase enzyme (HRP) and hydrogenperoxide (H O ) at physiological conditions. The gelation time of the 2 2 hydrogel could be modulated ranging from 7 to 73 sec, when the concentrations of HRP, H O , and polymers varied. In vitro cytotoxicity study with Human Foreskin 2 2 Fibro-blast cell using live/dead assay indicated that the hydrogel had high cytocompatibility and could be used as a drug delivery material. Heparin release profiles show that the dendrimer- base hydrogel or cationic hydrogel could control release of heparin as compared to control sample. The obtained results demonstrated a great potential of the cationic hydrogel in biomedical applications. Keywords: Cationic hydrogel Tetronic Dendrimer G3.0 Injectable