Caddisfly Inspired Phosphorylated Poly(ester urea)-Based Degradable Bone Adhesives.

Bone and tissue adhesives are essential in surgeries for wound healing, hemostasis, tissue reconstruction, and drug delivery. However, there are very few degradable materials with high adhesion strengths that degrade into bioresorbable byproducts. Caddisfly adhesive silk is interesting due to the presence of phosphoserines, which are thought to afford adhesive properties. In this work, phosphoserine-valine poly(ester urea) copolymers with 2% and 5% phosphoserine content were synthesized to mimic caddisfly adhesive silk. Significantly, the materials are ethanol soluble and water insoluble, making them clinically relevant. Their physical properties were quantified, and the adhesion properties were studied on aluminum and bovine bone substrates before and after cross-linking with Ca(2+) ions. The adhesive strength of the phosphorylated copolymer on a bone substrate after cross-linking with Ca(2+) was 439 ± 203 kPa, comparable to commercially available PMMA bone cement (530 ± 133 kPa).