Highly swellable and biocompatible graphene/heparin-analogue hydrogels for implantable drug and protein delivery

Abstract

Research on the design of heparin-analogue hydrogels is of tremendous importance and fuelled by diverse emerging biomedical applications, such as cancer inhibition, treatments of genetic diseases, growth factor carriers, and scaffolds for regeneration medicine, due to their specific biological and biocompatible properties. In this study, by taking inspiration from recent advancements of graphene nanomaterials and heparin-analogue polymers, we designed a kind of highly swellable, elastic, hemo- and cyto-compatible graphene oxide (GO) hybridized heparin-analogue hydrogels for potential drug and protein delivery. The fabricated GO/heparin-analogue hydrogels (GHHs) exhibited an inner-interpenetrated porous structure and robust mechanical properties compared to the GO absent heparin-analogue hydrogel (HH). Notably, the GHHs showed excellent results for in vitro biocompatibility, such as red blood cell compatibility, anti-platelet adhesion and activation, low inflammation potential, high endothelial cell compatibility. Furthermore, after adding GO, the hydrogels showed improved loading and persistent release abilities of doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX); the GHHs also demonstrated their potential for efficient protein loading and long-term releasing. Due to the integration of elastic mechanical properties, hemo- and cyto-compatibility, as well as drug and protein delivery abilities, the GO hybridized heparin-analogue hydrogels open up a new potential protocol for implantable drug and protein delivery therapies, and bioactive scaffolds for tissue regeneration.