A π-π conjugation-containing soft and conductive injectable polymer hydrogel highly efficiently rebuilds cardiac function after myocardial infarction

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• 作者：Rui Bao ; Baoyu Tan ; Shuang Liang ; Ning Zhang ; Wei Wang ; ^{wwgfz@tju.edu.cn} ; Wenguang Liu ; ^{wgliu@tju.edu.cn}
• 关键词：π-π conjugation ; Conductive ; Injectable hydrogel ; Myocardial infarction
• 刊名：Biomaterials
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：April 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：122
• 期：Complete
• 页码：63-71
• 全文大小：2210 K
• 卷排序：122

文摘

Previous studies suggested that a stiffer hydrogel system exhibited a better performance to promote heart function after myocardial infarction (MI). However, the nature of myocardium, a tissue that alternately contracts and relaxes with electrical impulses, leads us to hypothesize that a soft and conductive hydrogel may be in favor of mechanical and electrical signals transmission to enhance heart function after MI. In this work, π-π conjugation interaction was first employed to produce a soft injectable hydrogel with conductive property. Melamine with π-π conjugation ring was used as a core to synthesize a multi-armed crosslinker PEGDA700-Melamine (PEG-MEL), which could crosslink with thiol-modified hyaluronic acid (HA-SH) to form an injectable hydrogel rapidly. By incorporating graphene oxide (GO), the injectable PEG-MEL/HA-SH/GO hydrogel exhibited a soft (G’ = 25 Pa) and anti-fatigue mechanical property and conductive property (G = 2.84 × 10−4 S/cm). The hydrogel encapsulating adipose tissue-derived stromal cells (ADSCs) was injected into MI area of rats. The significant increase in α-Smooth Muscle Actin (α-SMA) and Connexin 43 (Cx43) expression confirmed that the gel efficiently promoted the transmission of mechanical and electrical signals. Meanwhile, a significant improvement of heart functions, such as distinct increase of ejection fraction (EF), smaller infarction size, less fibrosis area, and higher vessel density, was achieved.