Figure 1.

Synthesis of poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate with thio-β esters (PEGDTT). PEGDTT was synthesized by adding d,l-dithiothreitol (DTT) and triethylamine (TEA) dropwise to a solution of PEGDA (2 kDa) in dichloromethane (DCM) under a nitrogen blanket (N₂). The molar ratio of DTT, PEG, and TEA was 3:2:0.9, respectively. The stars denote the sites of thio-β esters in the polymer chain, which undergo rapid hydrolysis. To see this illustration in color, the reader is referred to the web version of this article at www.liebertpub.com/wound