Hydrophobic and hydrophilic balance of biodegradable poly(thio ketal) polymers and their use as antioxidant systems for tissue regeneration
Russo, Katherine
0000-0003-1248-2011
:
2021-03-22
Abstract
Chronic wounds are wounds that have failed to progress through the stages of wound healing properly and become stalled in a prolonged state of inflammation. There is increasing need of treatments that not only help progress the wound healing process into the proliferative and remodeling phases, but also protect against additional factors that may cause more damage to the tissue. This project aims to characterize the material properties of a family of biodegradable stimuli-responsive poly(thio ketal) urethane (PTK-UR) scaffolds as an antioxidant system for tissue regeneration in chronic wounds. The hypothesis is that as the hydrophilicity of the PTK polymer increases, the scaffold will have favorable properties to promote cell growth and control cell behavior. The results show that increasing polyethylene glycol content in the PTK monomer increases hydrophilicity, which results in accelerated degradation of PTK-UR scaffolds in oxidative media. The increased hydrophilicity also enhances the antioxidant capacity of the material, which provides a protective benefit for cells in oxidative environments in vitro. The scaffolds and scaffold products also support cell viability in vitro. These data suggest that PTK-UR scaffolds possess favorable characteristics to support tissue regeneration in necrotic, non-healing wounds