Polypropylene mesh for hernia repair with controllable cell adhesion/de-adhesion properties

Abstract

Herein, a versatile bilayersystem, composed by a polypropylene(PP)mesh and a covalently bonded poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm) hydrogel, is reported. The cell adhesion mechanism was successfully modulated by controlling the architecture of the hydrogel in terms of duration of PNIPAAm graftingtime, crosslinker content, and temperature of material exposure in PBS solutions (belowandabove the LCST of PNIPAAm). The best in vitroresults with fibroblast (COS-1) and epithelial (MCF-7) cells was obtained with a mesh modified with porous iPP-g-PNIPAAm bilayer system, prepared via PNIPAAm grafting for 2 h at the lowest N,N'-methylene bis(acrylamide) (MBA)concentration (1 mM). Under these conditions, the detachment of the fibroblast-like cells was 50% lower than that of the control, after 7 days of cell incubation, which represents a high de-adhesionof cellsin a short period. Moreover, the whole system showed an excellent stability in dry or wet media, proving that the thermosensitive hydrogel was well adhered to the polymer surface, after PP fibreactivation by cold plasma. This study opens new insights on the development of anti-adherent meshes for abdominal hernia repairs.Peer ReviewedPublished versio