Dihydromyricetin encapsulated gelatin‐dialdehyde‐β‐cyclodextrin hydrogels for antibacterial application

Abstract Dihydromyricetin (DMY), a natural flavonoid compound, has garnered extensive research interests owing to its high pharmaceutical value with antioxidant, anticancer and antimicrobial properties. However, its intrinsic limitation of low water‐solubility and poor stability severely obstructs its biomedical applications. Herein, a dynamic imine cross‐linking strategy to assemble DMY/DA‐β‐CD/gelatin hydrogel (DDG) is reported, with the aim of enhancing DMY bio‐efficacy and achieve a synergistic antibacterial effect. DMY can be wrapped by the amphiphilic dialdehyde‐β‐cyclodextrin (DA‐β‐CD) to form an inclusion compound (DMY/DA‐β‐CD), significantly increasing its water‐solubility without compromising its sustainable release. Furthermore, the Schiff base reaction between DA‐β‐CD and gelatin drive the formation of DDG hydrogel featuring viscoelastic, self‐healing and injectability properties, serving as a DMY delivery platform. DMY and DA‐β‐CD synergistically inhibited bacterial proliferation, enabling a broad‐spectrum antibacterial effect against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus with over 90% inhibition and good biocompatibility. Our work provides a paradigm for self‐assembling DMY inclusion compound into a hydrogel to improve the bio‐efficacy of DMY, so that the hydrogel can be used as a carrier for hydrophobic drug delivery with promising applications in the biomedical field.