β-(1,3)-D-Glucan Grafting Hyaluronan Copolymer As Skin Dressing

Objective: The degraded glucan is grafted by hyaluronic acid (glucan-g-HA), fordisclosing its biocompatibility and exploring the prospects of it as a skin dressing.Methods: β-1,3-D-glucan was degraded by formic acid and activated byepichlorohydrin. And then was grafted by HA with the conditions of mechanicalagitation and ultrasonic vibration. Chemical structures of glucan-g-HA werecharacterized by FT-IR and13C-NMR. The grafting rate of glucan-g-HA was detectedby elemental analysis. The morphology of glucan-g-HA scaffold was observed byscanning electron microscopy. The cytotoxicity of copolymer was detected by CCK-8.Glucan and glucan-g-HA was smeared on the glass slide, and inoculated withfibroblasts cells, and then their adhesions of cells were evaluated under an opticalmicroscope. Real-time PCR detected the mRNA expression of TNF-α、IL-1andIL-6of RAW264.7stimulated by glucan. The biocompatibility and degradability ofcopolymer was assessed by subcutaneous degradation in mice. The copolymerpromoted the healing of mouse skin wounds by animal tests and HE staining.Result: We obtain a purity of99.55%glucan degradation. The glucan-g-HA wassynthesized and confirmed by FT-IR,13C-NMR and elemental analysis. And hyaluronic acid was mostly grafted on C4and C6of glucan by NMR analysis. ThroughSEM observation, we find that there is a little roughness on the surface ofglucan-g-HA scaffold, which is suitable for cell adhesion. The results of cell toxicitytest show that the copolymer is no cytotoxicity with the concentration less than20mg/ml. The fibroblasts can be proliferated on the material. Through subcutaneousdegradation of mice experiments, we concluded that the degradation rate ofglucan-g-HA increased with raising hyaluronic acid. The trauma repair results in miceexperiments showed that glucan-g-HA was better than glucan in promoting thehealing of skin wounds. These results demonstrate glucan-g-HA has a promise in skinrepair.