Scarless Wound Closure by a Mussel-Inspired Poly(amidoamine) Tissue Adhesive with Tunable Degradability

Burn, trauma, and various medical conditions including bacterial infection, diabetes complication, and surgery could lead to an acute cutaneous wound and scar formation. Application of tissue glues instead of sutures could minimize the additional trauma and scar formation. Despite the countless efforts devoted to the development of high-strength tissue glues, little attention has been paid to their influence on the scar formation. Here, we report the development of a new tissue glue with excellent biocompatibility and tunable degradability for scarless wound closure. A series of catechol-containing poly(amidoamine) (CPAA) polymers were synthesized via the one-step Michael addition of dopamine and bisacrylamide. The tertiary amino group in the polymer backbone was used to introduce a zwitterionic sulfobetaine group by one-step ring-opening polymerization. The introduction of the zwitterionic sulfobetaine group could easily tune the hydrophilicity and the degradability of CPAA without influencing the densit...