A nucleoside responsive diaminotriazine-based hydrogen bonding strengthened hydrogel

• Diaminotriazine-diaminotriazine hydrogen bonding strengthened hydrogels have been achieved through one step of copolymerization.
• The hydrogel is uniquely responsive to thymidine.
• The specific nucleoside responsive characteristic is harnessed to control drug permeation.

Controlled or targeted release system responding to a specific biomolecular signal is an ideal goal in drug delivery. Herein, we fabricated diaminotriazine-diaminotriazine (DAT-DAT) hydrogen bonding strengthened functional hydrogels by one step of photo-initiated copolymerization which demonstrated unprecedented nucleoside responsive behavior. The hydrogen bonded hydrogels became increasingly swollen in response to thymidine due to much stronger competition of DAT-thymidine with DAT-DAT hydrogen bonding. Interestingly, thymidine was shown to facilitate drug release from the gels. This proof of concept study offers a new avenue to design and construct smart biomaterials capable of delivering target drug by virtue of nucleosides potentially from endogenously synthesized or indigested diet.

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