Elsevier

Carbohydrate Polymers

Volume 165, 1 June 2017, Pages 294-303
Carbohydrate Polymers

Acacia gum polysaccharide based hydrogel wound dressings: Synthesis, characterization, drug delivery and biomedical properties

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.carbpol.2017.02.039Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Hydrogel dressings are porous network structure.

  • Drug release followed non Fickian mechanism.

  • Drug release profile best fitted in the Higuchi model.

  • Wound dressings are antioxidant, non-haemolytic and mucoadhesive in nature.

  • Histological study showed accelerated wound healing.

Abstract

Keeping in view the importance of polysaccharide gums for wound care, in the present article, an attempt has been made to explore antioxidant nature of gum acacia in designing hydrogel wound dressing to improve its wound healing potential. These polymers were prepared by using acacia gum-polyvinylpyrollidone/carbopol and were characterized by 13C NMR, FTIR, SEM, AFM, cryo-SEM, XRD, TGA, DSC and elemental analysis techniques. Some important biomaterial properties of wound dressings such as wound fluid absorption, haemo-compatibility, bioactive assessment, gaseous/water/microbial permeability, mechanical properties, bio-adhesion, drug release, and histology of wound healing were also determined. Hydrogel wound dressings were found non-haemolytic, antioxidant and mucoadhesive in nature. Release of drug occurred through non-Fickian diffusion mechanism and release profile best fitted in Higuchi model.

Introduction

Design of innovative bioactive materials for wound care is a necessity of the present era in order to accelerate wound healing processes. Mimicry of the human skin by the hydrogels has led to exploration of their potential as wound dressings materials. Nowadays, hydrogels have been widely accepted as biomaterial scaffolds for tissue-engineering applications due to their crosslinked three dimension structures which have ability to encapsulate cells and bioactive molecules, efficient mass transfer, and easily manipulated physical properties (Bonifacio, Gentile, Ferreira, Cometa, & Giglio, 2017; Fan et al., 2017 Shankar et al., 2017). Highly hydrated hydrogels provide ideally cellular microenvironments for cell proliferation and differentiation. Hydrogels also possess structural and functional similarities to the natural extracellular matrices (Paladini, Pollini, Sannino, & Ambrosio, 2015). Natural polymers have frequently been used to make hydrogel dressings for tissue-engineering applications owing to their biocompatibility, inherent biodegradability, and critical biological functions (Hoffman, 2012). Keeping in view the importance of natural polysaccharide based hydrogel in wound dressing applications, in the present work, an attempt has been made to design a hydrogel dressing using gum-acacia (GA), polyvinylpyrollidone [poly(NVP] and carbopol. Further, these hydrogel dressings have been loaded with antibiotic drug moxifloxacin to enhance their wound healing potential (Jacobsen et al., 2011). Hence, the proposed antibiotic drug loaded hydrogel wound dressings will not only provide protection from infection for longer period (due to antibiotic drug) but can also absorbed simulated wound fluid which is necessary for wound debridement and maintenance of moist wound environment for rapid wound healing. GA, poly(NVP) and carbopol are briefly discussed here.

Gum arabic is a dried exudation obtained from the stems and branches of Acacia Senegal or closely related species of acacia (fam. Leguminosae). It consists mainly of higher molecular weight polysaccharides and their calcium, magnesium and potassium salts, which on hydrolysis yield arabinose, galactose, rhamnose and glucuronic acid (FAO, 1999, Phillips, 1998; Idris, Williams, & Phillips, 1998). GA is a water soluble gum and forms solutions over a wide range of concentrations without becoming highly viscous (Cozic, Picton, Garda, Marlhoux, & Cerf, 2009). GA is a non-digestible food ingredient that has found many applications in the food and pharmaceutical industries. GA has strong anti-oxidant properties, and a major mechanism for the induction of renal or hepatic toxicities is the generation of free radicals (Ali, Ziada, & Blunden, 2009). Recently, it has been reported that gum acacia extract is haemostatic, non-haemolytic, and antibacterial in nature (Bhatnagar, Parwani, Sharma, Ganguli, & Bhatnagar, 2013). Carbopol is a mucoadhesive poly(acrylic acid) polymer which has been used in gel formation for transdermal drug delivery applications (Jana, Manna, Nayak, Sen, & Basu, 2014). On the other hand, poly(NVP) polymer is a water soluble, hydrophilic polymer and has been used in wound dressings materials. It has been found cytocompatible for human dermal fibroblasts and has significantly increased fibroblast viability (Shahbuddin, Bullock, MacNeil, & Rimmer, 2014). Poly(NVP) addition in the composite polymer matrix improved the blood compatibility of the biomaterials (Wetzels & Koole, 1999).

Section snippets

Materials

Gum acacia (GA), carbopol 940 (CP) [Loba Chemie Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai-India], and N-Vinylpyrollidone (NVP) [Merck Specialities Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai, India] were used as materials for the synthesis of polymers. Ammonium persulphate (APS) [Qualigens Fine Chemicals, Mumbai-India] was used as initiator, N,N-methylenebisacrylamide (NN-MBA) [Acros organics, New Jersey-USA] was used as crosslinker and glycerol [S.D. Fine Chemical Ltd., Mumbai-India] was used as plasticizer for the synthesis of these polymer

Characterization

Solid state 13C NMR spectrum of GA and GACVP is shown in Fig. 1a. In case of 13C NMR of crosslinked polymers the broad peak at δ = 178.448 can be attributed to carbonyl (Cdouble bondO) carbons of poly (NVP), carbopol and GA, and some adjacent smaller peaks may be due to different environment of the three carbonyl carbon present in the polymer matrix. Another broad peak of less intensity at δ = 105.213 was observed due to anomeric carbon of pyranose rings present in GA. Peaks around δ = 85.131 are characteristic

Conclusions

From the foregone discussion, it is concluded that the hydrogel dressings are porous in nature. The three dimensional porous structure is confirmed from cryo- SEM images of the hydrogel films. Release of moxifloxacin drug from the hydrogel dressing followed non-Fickian diffusion mechanism and release profile was best fitted in the Higuchi model. The polymer films showed antioxidant activity and absorbed wound fluid. The results of drug release studies and biomedical properties indicated that

Conflicts of interests

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interests.

Acknowledgments

One of the author wishes to thank UGC, New Delhi, India for providing financial assistance in the work. (Letter No. F.17-40/08(SA-I), dated 27 April, 2012).

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