Advances of Sulfonated Hyaluronic Acid in Biomaterials and Coatings—A Review

Hyaluronic acid (HA) is a non-sulfated glycosaminoglycan (GAG) that is a versatile material whose biological, chemical, and physical characteristics can be deeply tuned to modifications. However, HA is easy to decompose by hyaluronidase in vivo, and this process will reduce its structure and function stability during application. The sulfonation of HA can improve its stability under the action of hyaluronidase. Sulfated hyaluronic acid (S-HA) can be synthesized by many methods, and it shows significantly slower degradation by hyaluronidase compared with HA. In addition, negatively charged S-HA has other advantages such as anti-adhesive activity, anti-inflammatory, macromolecules by electrostatic interactions, stable site absorption of positively charged molecules, and enhancement of growth factor binding ability. It has numerous applications in medical (anti-aging, inflammation, tissue regeneration, cancer therapy, wound healing, and drug delivery) and cosmetics as biomaterials and coatings. In this article, the advances of S-HA for potential application of biomaterials and biomedical coatings will be reviewed and comprehensively discussed.