Synthesis, characterization, pH-sensitive swelling and antimicrobial activities of chitosan–graft-poly(hydroxyethyl methacrylate) hydrogel composites for biomedical applications

In this paper, 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) was graft copolymerized onto chitosan (CHI) at different ratios using a radical initiator. The grafted hydrogel composites were then characterized by attenuated total reflection Fourier transform ınfrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) and thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA). Swelling behavior of the hydrogels was investigated at different pH and different times. The antimicrobial activity of the chitosan-graft-HEMA (CHI-HEMA) against gram-negative bacteria and gram-positive bacteria was studied by the standard agar well diffusion assay method. The CHI-HEMA 1:1 and CHI-HEMA 1:2 showed an obvious antimicrobial effect against six test strains. The CHI-HEMA 1:1 and CHI-HEMA 1:2 exhibited a highly significant increase (p < 0.01) in diameter of the inhibition zones compared with the standard antibiotics. Furthermore, CHI-HEMA 1:1 presented the highest antimicrobial activity against all test strains with a significant difference (p < 0.01) compared with CHI-HEMA 1:2. Meanwhile, the decreasing order of the average sensitivity to CHI-HEMA 1:1 and CHI-HEMA 1:2 was observed to be S. marcescens > E. coli > S. aureus subsp. aureus > S. enteritidis > E. faecalis > E. aerogenes. These results indicate potential application of CHI-HEMA 1:1 and CHI-HEMA 1:2 graft hydrogels as a novel and efficient antimicrobial agent in biomedical fields.