Bioinspired Adhesive Hydrogel Driven by Adenine and Thymine

Bioinspired strategies have drawn much attention for designing intelligent hydrogels with promising performance. Herein, we present a bioinspired adhesive hydrogel driven by adenine and thymine, which are the basic units of DNA. The adhesive hydrogel exhibited promising adhesive property for the surface of various solid materials, including muscle tissues, plastics, rubbers, glasses, metals, ceramics, carnelians, and woods. The maximum peeling strength of hydrogels was 330 N m–1 on aluminum, superior to that of PAAm hydrogels with 70 N m–1. The strong adhesive behavior remained more than 30 times repeated peeling tests. Moreover, the swelling behavior, morphological structure, mechanical strength, and peeling adhesive strength were also investigated and confirmed the formation and various characteristics of adhesive hydrogels driven by adenine and thymine. Thus, the biomimetic strategy to design promising adhesive hydrogels can provide various opportunities in tissue engineering, such as wound dressing, bioglues, and tissue adhesives.