Investigation of physicochemical, morphological and biomedical properties of network hydrogels derived from arabinogalactan of acacia-tragacanth gum.

Abstract

Recently, significant progress has been made in the development of natural polysaccharide-derived functional copolymers for advanced biomedical uses. Herein, the main objective of the present research work was to explore the potential of gum acacia (GA) and tragacanth gum (TG) for developing network hydrogels to use in drug delivery (DD) applications. The copolymers were prepared by grafting of 3-sulfopropylacrlate (SPA) onto gum (GA-TG). FE-SEM, AFM, XRD, XPS, FTIR, ¹³C NMR and DSC techniques were applied for their characterizations and structural analysis. The physicochemical, morphological and biomedical properties of hydrogels were investigated. The optimized polymer network exhibited a mesh size (ξ) of 13.95 mm and a cross-linking density (ρ) of 6.44 × 10^-5 mol/cm³. FE-SEM and AFM revealed heterogeneous morphology and rough topology of copolymer hydrogels. The XRD revealed the amorphous state of the copolymer. FTIR and ¹³C NMR confirmed the incorporation of poly(SPA) chains onto gums. Diffusion of meropenem drug occurred in a sustained manner with a non-Fickian diffusion mechanism. The release profile of the drug was best described by the First-order kinetic model. The results of polymer-blood interactions revealed their non-haemolytic & non-thrombogenic features. Copolymers exhibited antioxidant nature and illustrated 40.72 ± 2.08 % scavenging ability during DPPH assay. The hydrogel demonstrated a mucoadhesive nature and required 100 ± 10 mN forces to separate from mucous membrane. The meropenem impregnated hydrogel exhibited antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli (E. coli), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) bacteria, respectively. The results of various properties demonstrated the suitability of network hydrogels for DD uses.