Development of dopant-free conductive bioelastomers

Cancan Xu; Yihui Huang; Gerardo Yepez; Zi Wei; Fuqiang Liu; Alejandro Bugarin; Liping Tang; Yi Hong

doi:10.1038/srep34451

Development of dopant-free conductive bioelastomers

Sci Rep. 2016 Sep 30:6:34451. doi: 10.1038/srep34451.

Authors

Cancan Xu^{1

2}, Yihui Huang^{1

2}, Gerardo Yepez³, Zi Wei⁴, Fuqiang Liu⁴, Alejandro Bugarin³, Liping Tang^{1

2}, Yi Hong^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Bioengineering, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX 76019, USA.
² Joint Biomedical Engineering Program, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX 75093, USA.
³ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas 76019, USA.
⁴ Department of Material Science and Engineering, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX 76019, USA.

Abstract

Conductive biodegradable materials are of great interest for various biomedical applications, such as tissue repair and bioelectronics. They generally consist of multiple components, including biodegradable polymer/non-degradable conductive polymer/dopant, biodegradable conductive polymer/dopant or biodegradable polymer/non-degradable inorganic additives. The dopants or additives induce material instability that can be complex and possibly toxic. Material softness and elasticity are also highly expected for soft tissue repair and soft electronics. To address these concerns, we designed a unicomponent dopant-free conductive polyurethane elastomer (DCPU) by chemically linking biodegradable segments, conductive segments, and dopant molecules into one polymer chain. The DCPU films which had robust mechanical properties with high elasticity and conductivity can be degraded enzymatically and by hydrolysis. It exhibited great electrical stability in physiological environment with charge. Mouse 3T3 fibroblasts survived and proliferated on these films exhibiting good cytocompatibility. Polymer degradation products were non-toxic. DCPU could also be processed into a porous scaffold and in an in vivo subcutaneous implantation model, exhibited good tissue compatibility with extensive cell infiltration over 2 weeks. Such biodegradable DCPU with good flexibility and elasticity, processability, and electrical stability may find broad applications for tissue repair and soft/stretchable/wearable bioelectronics.