(542d) Mussel-Inspired Bio-Based Tissue Sealants for Surgical Wound Closure

Leaking wounds are a major concern in most surgeries around the world. Traditionally, wound closure is achieved using invasive techniques such as sutures, staples and wires. However, these are being increasing replaced with adhesion-based wound closure methods such as tissue adhesives and sealants. Despite all the advancements made in trying to replace sutures and staples with tissue sealants, there is a need for better commercial tissue sealant not only from the point of view of biocompatibility and higher adhesion strengths but also because most sealants available today are complicated to synthesize and therefore are expensive. Our research team has developed nature-inspired synthetic adhesives, particularly based on marine organisms such as mussels, barnacles, and oysters. We take cues from the way they attach themselves strongly onto surfaces in the ocean and synthesize glues that mimic their chemistry. We have recently shifted our focus from synthetic to natural materials and developed inexpensive, bio-derived and non-toxic bio-based sealant from zein and tannic acid (TA). Moreover, a naturally occurring and low cost food grade enzyme, Transglutaminase was employed as an interfacial crosslinker to further enhance the adhesion strengths of the sealants such that the adhesion strengths could exceed the normal physiological pressures experienced in various organs/tissues. The four different zein based sealants were studied across seven different tissues at two different cure times and were benchmarked against commercial gold standard tissue sealants: Tisseel. The zein based sealants exhibited adhesion strengths higher than normal physiological pressures when tested on most tissues. The adhesion strengths obtained were also better than or at par with Tisseel. Cytocompatibility studies on NIH 3T3 cells showed that the leachates from the sealant were non-toxic to cells. The results obtained from in vitro adhesion tests were further validated using ex vivo models. After successful in vitro and ex vivo studies, the efficacy of wound sealing was further validated in vivo using a full-thickness skin incision model in rats. Complete and scar-free wound closure was observed within less than two weeks. These promising results combined with the inexpensive and simple synthesis protocol make our sealants a promising candidate to replace commercially available wound closure methods.