Dynamic hydration driven adhesiveness self-reinforcement of powdery protein for rapid artery hemostasis

Surgical adhesives with rapid and tough adhesion under wet or aqueous conditions are highly desirable for artery hemostasis yet still extremely challenging. We here explored a kind of protein powder featured with hydration-driven adhesiveness self-reinforcement in water. The protein powder, consisting of corn-derived protein (zein), sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), and poly-lysine (PLL), was conveniently produced via sandcastle worm-inspired multivalent ionic crosslinking between zein/SDS colloid and PLL, which showed rapidly water-contacting gelation and tough adhesion on wet surfaces. We revealed that the interfacial water removal and bulk heterogeneity of the hydrated zein/SDS-PLL powder synergistically improved both the interfacial adhesion and the bulk cohesion, resulting in tough wet adhesion within 2 min. The rapid interfacial adhesion of the zein/SDS-PLL powder is attributed to the highly hydrated propensity of the ionic complex and self-gelation via interfacial water removal, while the bulk heterogeneity resulted from the incompletely hydrated ionic domains, which functioned as rigid fillers to improve the cross-density and bulk cohesion of the hydrated adhesive matrix. This bulk heterogeneity mechanism fulfills the existing knowledge gap of adhesiveness enhancement of the hydrated powdery adhesives. The hydrated zein/SDS-PLL powdery adhesive with excellent biocompatibility and biodegradation can resist high bursting pressure (118.2-129.4 mmHg), which can achieve rapid and reliable artery hemostasis on rat, rabbit and pig models.