Fig. 2: Characterization of rapidly gelling oxime hydrogels.

a Storage moduli (G′) were measured as a function of final polymer mass concentration in Ald–AO gels using a frequency sweep from 10⁻² to 10² Hz at 37°C; G′ at 1Hz is shown. b Ald–AO–Cat gels with varying Cat-8PEG content were gelled and G′ was measured under the same conditions. Increasing Cat-8PEG content of the gels resulted in decreasing G′. c G′ for Ald–AO–Cat and Ald–AO were measured up to 3h post gelation and relative G′ was calculated. Over the 3h incubation period, G′ significantly increased for Ald–AO–Cat indicating the formation of secondary crosslinks between Cat and AO. d Low swelling ratios were observed for both Ald–AO–Cat and Ald–AO gels, with significantly lower swelling ratio observed for Ald–AO–Cat. e In vitro degradation of the oxime hydrogels revealed significantly greater mass loss after 28 days for Ald–AO gels compared to Ald–AO–Cat gels. f Ex vivo retention of Ald-AO-Cat shows significantly greater retention on the tissue surface compared to Ald-AO over 8 days. Note that some error bars are too small to be visible in a–c, e, f. Mean ± SD and analyzed with a two-way ANOVA with a Tukey’s post-hoc test in c, e, f and an unpaired two-sided t-test in d (*p < 0.05, **p < 0.005, ***p < 0.001, ****p < 0.0001 between hydrogels). n = 21 individual frequencies were used to determine the means in a–c. Measurements in a were repeatedly independently with similar results for 100mg/mL (n = 3) and 62.5mg/mL (n = 3), and measurements in b were repeatedly independently with similar results for 0% (n = 3) and all other concentrations (n = 2). n = 3 independent gel samples for each condition in d–f. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.