Miguel Gonzalez-Andrades, James Chodosh, Sina Sharifi, Tom Eirik Mollnes, Rakibul Islam, Felisa Reyes-Ortega, Per H. Nilsson, David Alba-Molina, Claes H. Dohlman, Mohammad Mirazul Islam, Darrell J. Koza, Hannah Sharifi, [Sharifi,S, Islam,MM, Sharifi,H, Dohlman,CH, Chodosh,J, Gonzalez-Andrades,M] Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Schepens Eye Research Institute, Department of Ophthalmology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. [Islam, Nilsson,PH, Mollnes,TE, ] Department of Immunology, Oslo University Hospital, Rikshospitalet, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway. [Koza,D] Department of Physical Sciences, Eastern Connecticut State University, Willimantic, CT, USA. [Nilsson,PH] Linnaeus Center for Biomaterials Chemistry, Linnaeus University, Kalmar, Sweden. [Mollnes,TE] Research Laboratory, Nordland Hospital, Bodø, Norway. [Mollnes,TE] Centre of Molecular Inflammation Research, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway. [Reyes-Ortega,F, Alba-Molina,D, Gonzalez-Andrades,M] Maimonides Biomedical Research Institute of Cordoba (IMIBIC), Department of Ophthalmology, Reina Sofia University Hospital and University of Cordoba, Cordoba, Spain. [Mollnes,TE] Faculty of Health Sciences, K.G. Jebsen TREC, University of Tromsø, Norway., and This paper was supported by the Boston-KPro research fund and NIH/NEI P30EY003790 (Core-PA). R.S. was supported in part by the K99 grant from NIH award no. K99 EY030553. This work was performed in part at the Center for Nanoscale Systems (CNS), Harvard University, a member of the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure Network (NNCI), which is supported by the National Science Foundation under NSF award no. 1541959. F.R-O and D.A-M were supported by the research project ICI19/00006, funded by Instituto de Salud Carlos III and co-funded by European Union (ERDF/ESF, 'A way to make Europe'/'Investing in your future'). F.R-O additionally acknowledges funding from Plan Andaluz de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación (PAIDI2020) Fellowship supported by Consejería de Economía, Conocimiento, Empresas y Universidad, Junta de Andalucía co-funded by Fondo Social Europeo de Andalucía 2014-2020.
Gelatin based adhesives have been used in the last decades in different biomedical applications due to the excellent biocompatibility, easy processability, transparency, non-toxicity, and reasonable mechanical properties to mimic the extracellular matrix (ECM). Gelatin adhesives can be easily tuned to gain different viscoelastic and mechanical properties that facilitate its ocular application. We herein grafted glycidyl methacrylate on the gelatin backbone with a simple chemical modification of the precursor, utilizing epoxide ring-opening reactions and visible light-crosslinking. This chemical modification allows the obtaining of an elastic protein-based hydrogel (GELGYM) with excellent biomimetic properties, approaching those of the native tissue. GELGYM can be modulated to be stretched up to 4 times its initial length and withstand high tensile stresses up to 1.95 MPa with compressive strains as high as 80% compared to Gelatin-methacryloyl (GeIMA), the most studied derivative of gelatin used as a bioadhesive. GELGYM is also highly biocompatible and supports cellular adhesion, proliferation, and migration in both 2 and 3-dimensional cell-cultures. These characteristics along with its super adhesion to biological tissues such as cornea, aorta, heart, muscle, kidney, liver, and spleen suggest widespread applications of this hydrogel in many biomedical areas such as transplantation, tissue adhesive, wound dressing, bioprinting, and drug and cell delivery., Graphical abstract Image 1, Highlights • Gelatin based adhesives have been used in the last decades in different biomedical applications. • Gelatin adhesives can be easily tuned to gain different viscoelastic and mechanical properties that facilitate its ocular application. • We herein grafted glycidyl methacrylate on the gelatin backbone with a simple chemical modification of the precursor. • Epoxide ring-opening reactions and visible light-crosslinking allows the obtaining of an elastic gelatin-based hydrogel (GELGYM). • GELGYM shows excellent biomimetic properties, approaching those of the native tissue.