Gelatin methacrylate based liquid dressing with antibacterial and hemostasis properties

For incompressible and irregularly shaped wounds, developing a novel dressing based on photo-crosslinked hydrogel that has both hemostasis and antibacterial functions is highly desirable. In this study, photoreactive substrate gelatin methacrylate (GelMA) and Poly (ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) were combined with water-soluble quaternary ammonium antibacterial monomers (DMC). Interestingly, they can quickly change from liquid to hydrogel under visible light at 405nm within 1min, which is suitable for small incompressible wounds. Regarding the biosafety of the dressing, cell viability and blood viability test indicated that the GelMA/PEGDA/DMC3 dressing has no cytotoxicity toward L929 cells and red blood cells. The antibacterial performance test proved that the addition of DMC significantly improved the antibacterial performance of the dressing. Moreover, the GelMA/PEGDA/DMC3 dressing showed rapid hemostasis ability in tail clipping hemostasis test and liver hemostasis test. Taken together, this new type of convenient hydrogel dressing exhibits great potential as a quick hemostasis and antibacterial wound dressing candidate for small bleeding wounds.