pH-responsive self-healing of chemically modified tragacanth gum hydrogels as antibiotic release system

• Published in: International journal of polymeric materials Vol. 72; no. 4; pp. 308 - 318
• Main Authors: Aşık, Müge, Akbay, İsmail Kutlugün, Özdemir, Sadin, Genç, Rükan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Philadelphia Taylor & Francis 04-03-2023; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Antibiotics; Antimicrobial hydrogels; biofilm inhibition; Citric acid; controlled drug delivery; Hydrogels; self-healing hydrogel; Tragacanth; tragacanth gum
• ISSN: 0091-4037; 1563-535X
• DOI: 10.1080/00914037.2021.2008390

Herein, we reported pH-responsive self-healing hydrogels from cross-linked tragacanth gum (TG) as a controlled antibiotic release system using varying gum concentrations at changing temperatures using both glutaraldehyde and citric acid. TG-HGs can sustain multiple cycles of healing and separation by relatively maintaining their mechanical and healing properties. Cefazolin (Cf) loaded TG-HGs showed a respectively slow drug release over 8-24 h depend on the TG concentration. Prepared cf-loaded hydrogels showed excellent antibacterial activity against both gram-negative and gram-positive bacterium, and resulted in high mortality (99.3%) on S. aureus with a robust inhibition of biofilm formation.