Cytocompatibility / Antibacterial Activity Trade-off for Knittable Wet-Spun Chitosan Monofilaments Functionalized by the In Situ Incorporation of Cu and Zn.

The wet spinning of cytocompatible, bioresorbable, and knittable chitosan (CTS) monofilaments would be advantageous for a variety of surgical applications. The complexation capacity of chitosan with Cu or Zn can be leveraged to enhance its antibacterial activity, but not at the expense of cytocompatibility. In this work, a wet-spinning process was adapted for the in situ incorporation of Cu or Zn with chitosan dopes to produce monofilaments at different drawing ratios (τ) with various cation/glucosamine molar ratios, evaluated in the fibers ( and ).