Polygalacturonic acid (PGA) with varying degrees of cinnamated subsititution were synthesized. 6.2-
15.1 % of the D-galacturonic residues of the cinnamated PGA (PGA-Cin) reacted with cinnamate
groups. An investigation of the photochemical properties revealed that the photoconversion rate and
rate constant of PGA-Cin was 80% and 5.95x 1O-3
s- 1 after UV irradiation. The anti-adhesion films
prepared from PGA-Cin exhibited high gel content and were found to efficacious in inhibiting bacterial
growth. We evaluated their biocompatibility and anti-adhesion capability in both in vitro and in vivo
experiments. The PGA-Cin films did not show any evidence of cytotoxic effects, as they did not induce
any significant increase of cytoplasmic LDH release from the L929 cells in contact with them. When
implanted into rats, the PGA-Cin films (anti-adhesion incidence 80.9%) exhibited more anti-adhesion
potential than the commercial product Sepra:fìlrn™ (anti-adhesion incidence 47.6%).
