*2.3. Rheological Properties of Hydrogel*

The rheological tests were performed in a MARS iQ Air + P35 rheometer (Thermo Scientific HAAKE, New York, NY, USA).The flow properties of the CP, LicA–CP, and Gla– CP hydrogels were obtained from continuous shear flow tests with shear rates ranging from 0–120 s−<sup>1</sup> for 120 s. Continuous ramp step were selected for analysis. The elastic and viscous modulus at different frequencies was measured using frequency sweep tests ranging from 0.1 to 100 with a constant %strain of 0.1. The G0 , G00, and δ values were recorded and the frequency was plotted in a logarithmic scale.

#### *2.4. Determination of the Drug Solubility in the Donor Phase*

Briefly, excessive Gla or LicA was added to the PBS/PEG400 (*v/v*, 80/20) and subjected to ultrasound for 30 min at 25 ◦C. Subsequently, the supernatant of the solution was taken out and filtered with a 0.22 µm microporous membrane for HPLC analysis. The detailed HPLC methods are shown in Methods S1.

#### *2.5. In Vitro Release of Hydrogels*

The hydrogels (0.3 g) were added to the cellophane membranes, which were then fixed between the donor and the receptor cells of the Franz diffusion cells (effective diffusional area: 1.77 cm<sup>2</sup> ; volume: 15 mL; TP-6, China). PBS (pH = 7.4) containing 20% PEG 400 (*v/v*) was chosen as the acceptor medium and stirred at 350 rpm and 32 ◦C. In total, 1.0 mL of sample was withdrawn after 0.25, 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 24, 36, and 48 h and then replaced by the same volume of fresh medium. The samples were analyzed using HPLC (Agilent 1260, Santa Clara, CA, USA). The detailed HPLC methods are provided in Methods S1.

Rhydrogel and Qhydrogel represent the cumulative release percent of drug (%) and cumulative release amount of drug, respectively. The enhancement ratio of drug release in hydrogel (ERrelease) was calculated as follows:

$$\text{ER}\_{\text{release}} = \frac{\text{R}\_{\text{hydrogel with enhancement}}}{\text{R}\_{\text{hydrogel without enhancement}}} \tag{1}$$
