Tissue Adhesive Properties of Functionalized Chitosan: A Comparative Study of Phenol, Catechol and Gallol

Tissue adhesives are greatly employed as surgical sealants for wound-healing patches and hemostatic dressing. However, achieving strong adhesion of wet tissues is still challenging because the bonding strength of biomedical adhesives is generally weakened by physiological fluids due to their high dielectric and ionic strengths. To overcome this challenge, bioinspired approaches have been adopted to enhance the wet adhesion of biocompatible polymers. Here, we synthesized a series of chitosan functionalized with bioinspired phenolic groups, i.e., phenol, catechol, and gallol, with similar modification rates. The bonding and sealing strengths of wet tissues by this functionalized chitosan were compared under similar conditions. We observed that the gallol group was the most effective in enhancing the tissue adhesion property of chitosan.