Plant-Inspired Adhesive and Injectable Natural Hydrogels: In Vitro and In Vivo Studies

Abstract

Abstract The development of alternative therapeutic treatments based on the use of medicinal and aromatic plants (Juniper communis L.) has aroused interest in the medical field to find new alternatives to the conventional therapeutic treatments, which nowadays have shown problems related to bacterial resistance, high costs or sustainability in their production. The present work describes the use of hydrogels based on sodium alginate and carboxymethyl cellulose with combinations of juniperus leaves and berries extracts in order to characterize their chemical characteristics, antibacterial activity, tissue adhesion test, cytotoxicity in L929 cell line, and their effects on an in vivo model in mice in order to maximize the use of these materials in the healthcare field. It has been overall obtained an adequate antibacterial potential against S. aureus, E. coli, P. vulgaris with the use of doses above 100 mg. mL− 1 of hydrogels, likewise a low cytotoxicity in hydrogels combined with extracts has been identified according with IC50 value at 17.32 µg. mL− 1 in comparison with the higher cytotoxic activity expressed by the use of control hydrogels with a value at 11.05 µg. mL− 1. Besides, in general the observed adhesion was high to the different tissues, showing its adequate capacity to be used in different tissue typologies. Furthermore, the in-vivo results have not shown erythema and edema or other complications related with the use of the proposed hydrogels. These results suggest the feasibility of using these hydrogels in biomedical applications in reason of the observed safety.