Biomaterials based on N,N,N-trimethyl chitosan fibers in wound dressing applications

In the present work, N,N,N-trimethyl chitosan (TMC) fibers were synthesized successfully and the resulting quaternized materials were characterized by FTIR. The designed TMC fibers with different degree of quaternization achieved high water absorption capability. In antibacterial activity study, TMC fibers showed high antibacterial activity than chitosan fibers against the gram-negative bacteria Escherichia coli (>63%) and gram-positive bacteria Staphylococcus aureus (>99%). TMC fibers exhibited no obvious cytotoxicity to mouse embryo fibroblast cells with low extraction concentrations (<0.05 g/mL). In animal wound healing test, TMC2 fibers could significantly enhance wound re-epithelialization and contraction compared with the control (chitosan fibers). In conclusion, TMC fibers have a potential to be used as wound dressing materials.