Plant‑inspired adhesive and injectable natural hydrogels: in vitro and in vivo studies
Abstract
The development of alternative thera peutic treatments based on the use of medicinal and
aromatic plants, such as Juniper communis L., has
aroused interest in the medical feld to fnd new alter natives to conventional therapeutic treatments, which
have shown problems related to bacterial resistance,
high costs, or sustainability in their production. The
present work describes the use of hydrogels based on
sodium alginate and carboxymethyl cellulose, with
combinations of juniperus leaves and berry extracts,
in order to characterize their chemical characteris tics, antibacterial activity, tissue adhesion test, cyto toxicity in the L929 cell line, and their efects on an
in vivo model in mice to maximize the use of these
materials in the healthcare feld. Overall, an adequate
antibacterial potential against S. aureus, E. coli and P.
vulgaris was obtained with doses above 100 mg.mL−1
of hydrogels. Likewise, low cytotoxicity in hydrogels
combined with extracts has been identifed accord ing to the IC50 value at 17.32 µg.mL−1, compared
to the higher cytotoxic activity expressed by the use
of control hydrogels with a value at 11.05 µg.mL−1.
Moreover, in general, the observed adhesion was high
to diferent tissues, showing its adequate capacity to
be used in diferent tissue typologies. Furthermore,
the invivo results have not shown erythema, edema,
or other complications related to the use of the pro posed hydrogels. These results suggest the feasibility
of using these hydrogels in biomedical applications
given the observed safety