Potential of novel antibacterial bio-adhesive for the treatment of periodontitis

Periodontitis seriously affects people's daily health, and the development of a non-antibiotic bio-adhesive with antimicrobial and periodontitis regeneration for periodontal pockets will effectively promote the treatment of periodontitis. In this study, we constructed a hybrid hydrogel (GelMA-BC-PL) by introducing aldehyde bacterial cellulose (BC) short nanofibers into the photosensitive hydrogel gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA), which binds to periodontal tissues to play an adhesive role through the Schiff base reaction, and further introducing ϵ-polylysine (PL), which could achieve the adhesive, antibacterial, and regenerative effect. Pigskin adhesion experiments showed that the adhesion of GelMA hydrogel to pigskin was only 0.39 N, while that of GelMA-BC-PL reached 1.42 N. The adhesion performance of the hydrogel was significantly improved by adding aldehyde BC nanofibers. Due to the introduction of PL, the antimicrobial properties of the hybrid hydrogel against two typical periodontitis bacteria (porphyromanas gingivalis and fusobacterium nucleatum), were significantly improved. Experiments with human periodontal membrane fibroblasts showed that the hybrid hydrogel had excellent cell spreading and proliferation promotion properties. The hybrid hydrogel simultaneously achieves adhesion, antimicrobial properties and promotes periodontal regeneration, which has great potential for application in the treatment of periodontitis diseases.