Enzyme-Regulated Healable Polymeric Hydrogels

Abstract

The enzyme-regulated healable polymeric hydrogels are a kind of emerging soft material capable of repairing the structural defects and recovering the hydrogel properties, wherein their fabrication, self-healing, or degradation is mediated by enzymatic reactions. Despite achievements that have been made in controllable cross-linking and de-cross-linking of hydrogels by utilizing enzyme-catalyzed reactions in the past few years, this substrate-specific strategy for regulating healable polymeric hydrogels remains in its infancy, because both the intelligence and practicality of current man-made enzyme-regulated healable materials are far below the levels of living organisms. A systematic summary of current achievements and a reasonable prospect at this point can play positive roles for the future development in this field. This Outlook focuses on the emerging and rapidly developing research area of bioinspired enzyme-regulated self-healing polymeric hydrogel systems. The enzymatic fabrication and degradation of healable polymeric hydrogels, as well as the enzymatically regulated self-healing of polymeric hydrogels, are reviewed. The functions and applications of the enzyme-regulated healable polymeric hydrogels are discussed.