Here, we present a novel strategy to fabricate hyaluronic acid (HA) hydrogels with excellent physical and biological properties. The cross-linking of HA hydrogel by butanediol diglycidyle ether (BDDE) was characterized under different reaction temperatures, and the resulting physical properties (i.e., the storage modulus and swelling ratio) were measured. The ratio between the cross-linking rate (a strengthening effect) and the hydrolysis rate (a weakening effect) was much greater with lower cross-linking temperatures after sufficient cross-linking time, resulting in a noticeably higher storage modulus. As the cross-linking temperature decreased, the formed HA hydrogel structure became denser with smaller pores. Moreover, the introduction of low-temperature HA cross-linking strategy also resulted in an enhanced several important characteristics of HA hydrogels including its enzymatic resistivity and its ability to elicit a cellular response. These results indicate the performance of HA hydrogels can be markedly enhanced without further additives or modifications, which is expected to contribute to the advancement of applications of HA hydrogels in all industrial fields.

在这里，我们提出了一种新颖的策略来制造具有出色的物理和生物学特性的透明质酸（HA）水凝胶。在不同的反应温度下表征了HA水凝胶与丁二醇二缩水甘油醚（BDDE）的交联，并测量了所得的物理性质（即储能模量和溶胀率）。在足够的交联时间之后，交联速率（增强作用）与水解速率（减弱作用）之间的比例随着交联温度的降低而大大提高，从而导致储能模量显着提高。随着交联温度的降低，所形成的HA水凝胶结构变得更致密，孔变得更小。而且，低温HA交联策略的引入还增强了HA水凝胶的几个重要特性，包括其酶促电阻率和引发细胞反应的能力。这些结果表明，无需进一步的添加剂或改性，即可显着提高HA水凝胶的性能，这有望促进HA水凝胶在所有工业领域中的应用。