Mechanically magnified chitosan-based hydrogel as tissue adhesive and antimicrobial candidate

The present article reports the development of chitosan (CS) based hydrogel series by varying the concentration of cross-linking agent i.e. N,N'-methylenebisacrylamide (MBA) (0.8-1.4 wt%) via free-radical polymerization in aqueous medium. SEM image analysis confirmed the presence of porous 3D-network in the hydrogel. Prepared hydrogel series exhibited good tissue adhesive property along with antimicrobial activity against E. coli, K. pneumonia, S. aureus, C. albicans &M. gypseum bacteria with the good MIC (4-20 mm). The adhesive strength of hydrogel was found 14 kPa, which seems to be quite efficient in tissue adhesiveness applications, which was also validated and tested on Drosophila (Oregon-R) tissues, results were promising. Magnified mechanical strength i.e. storage modulus (G') and loss modulus (G″) were found 10⁶ Pa and 10⁴ Pa, respectively, which makes the hydrogel a potential candidate in the biomedical field. Moreover, CS hydrogel showed good swelling ratio in aqueous medium up to 390% at room temperature.