Effect of crosslinking strategy on the biological, antibacterial and physicochemical performance of hyaluronic acid and ɛ-polylysine based hydrogels

The design of multifunctional hydrogels based on bioactive hyaluronic acid (HA) and antibacterial cationic polymer ε-poly-L-lysine (ε-PL) is a promising tool in tissue engineering applications. In the current study, we have designed hyaluronic acid and ε-polylysine composite hydrogel systems with antibacterial and cell attractive properties. Two distinct crosslinking approaches were used: the physical crosslinking based on electrostatic at- tractions and the chemical crosslinking of charged functional groups (-NH2 and -COOH). The impact of the crosslinking strategy on fabricated hydrogel molecular structure, swelling behavior, gel fraction, morphology, porosity, visc…