1. Bio-based poly (γ-glutamic acid) hydrogels reinforced with bacterial cellulose nanofibers exhibiting superior mechanical properties and cytocompatibility.
- Author
-
Dou C, Li Z, Gong J, Li Q, Qiao C, and Zhang J
- Subjects
- Bacteria, Biocompatible Materials chemistry, Cell Survival, Compressive Strength, Glutamic Acid chemistry, Nanofibers chemistry, Polyglutamic Acid chemistry, Polymers, Tensile Strength, Cellulose chemistry, Hydrogels chemistry, Polyglutamic Acid analogs & derivatives
- Abstract
Natural polymer hydrogels are expected to be promising biomaterial because of its excellent biocompatibility and biodegradability, but they are soft and easily broken. Herein, the poly (γ-glutamic acid) (γ-PGA)/bacterial cellulose (BC) composite hydrogels with excellent mechanical properties were constructed by introducing bacterial cellulose. The γ-PGA/BC composite hydrogels were obtained by the covalent cross-linking of γ-PGA in the BC nanofibers suspensions. The γ-PGA/BC composite hydrogels exhibited excellent strength and toughness due to the more effective energy dissipation of hydrogen bonds network among BC nanofibers and γ-PGA hydrogel matrix and BC also acts as an enhancer. The compressive fracture strength and toughness of the γ-PGA/BC composite hydrogels could reach up to 5.72 MPa and 0.42 MJ/m
3 respectively. Additionally, the tensile strength of γ-PGA/BC composite hydrogels were improved 8.16 times compared with γ-PGA single network hydrogels. More significantly, BC could disperse evenly in the γ-PGA hydrogels because of the hydrophilic nature of γ-PGA and BC nanofillers, which led to good interface compatibility. The result of cytotoxicity tests indicated that γ-PGA/BC composite hydrogels present excellent cytocompatibility, which suggested that the γ-PGA/BC composite hydrogels could serve as promising materials for many biomaterial related applications., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare no competing financial interest., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)- Published
- 2021
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