Development of an injectable self-healing hydrogel based on N-succinyl chitosan/ oxidized pectin for biomedical applications

In this study, a class of biocompatible composite hydrogels was presented via the water-soluble chitosan and oxidized pectin without adding a chemical crosslinking agent. The Schiff base reaction between amino and aldehyde functional groups of polysaccharide derivatives leads to gelation. So, to prepare the composite hydrogels, we synthesized N-succinyl-chitosan (N–Ch) and oxidized pectin (OP). Also, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy was used to characterize the polysaccharide derivatives and composite hydrogels. Experiments revealed that different N–Ch/OP volume ratios affect the porosity, surface morphology, and swelling ratio of composite hydrogels. The hydrogels healed in 20 min without any further exogenous stimulus, according to the visual and rheological analyses. Simultaneously, various methods were used to investigate the composite hydrogels' properties, such as gelation time, swelling strength, hemolytic potential, biological compatibility, and the antibacterial features. The findings of these researches reveal that these composite hydrogels have some characteristics, i.e., a fast gelation time (