Improved tissue adhesion property of a hydrophobically modified Alaska pollock derived gelatin sheet by UV treatment

Tissue adhesives have been developed for sealing tissue damaged in surgery. Among these, sheet-type adhesives require a relatively long time to adhere to biological tissue under wet conditions. To address this clinical problem, we fabricated a tissue-adhesive fiber sheet (AdFS) based on decanyl group (C10) modified Alaska pollock-derived gelatin (C10-ApGltn) using electrospinning. Ultraviolet (UV) irradiation of the AdFS was performed to increase the affinity between the AdFS and wet biological tissue by introducing hydrophilic functional groups. The UV irradiated AdFS (UV-C10-AdFS) strongly adhered to porcine pleura within 2 min under wet conditions and showed higher burst strength compared with the original ApGltn (Org-ApGltn) sheet. Hematoxylin-eosin stained sections revealed that a dense UV-C10-AdFS layer remained on the surface of the porcine pleura even after burst strength measurement. Moreover, UV-C10-AdFS has excellent cytocompatibility and efficiently supports the growth of L929 cells. UV-C10-AdFS is a promising adhesive material for sealing wet biological tissue.