A glutathione-disulfide-ended poly(ethylene glycol)(GSSG-PEG-GSSG) was designed. It is a much more efficient accelerator than glutathione disulfide(GSSG) for the gelation of an 8arm-PEG-SH polymer solution, and the gelation time can be tuned from hours to minutes at the physiological p H and temperature. A mechanism was proposed to explain the different behaviors of the GSSG and GSSG-PEG-GSSG gelation systems. Due to the ever-going thiol-disulfide exchange reaction, the thiol-disulfide hydrogels also showed interesting swelling behavior.
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