Preventing bacterial infections and accelerating wound closure are essential in the process of wound healing. Current wound dressings lack enough mechanical properties, selfhealing ability, and tissue adhesiveness, and the bacterial killing also relies on the use of antibiotic drugs. Herein, a well-designed hybrid hydrogel dressing is constructed by simple copolymerization of acrylamide (AM), 3-acrylamido phenylboronic acid (AAPBA), chitosan (CS), and the nanoscale tannic acid (TA)/ferric ion (Fe 3+ ) complex (TFe). The resulting hydrogel possesses lots of free catechol, phenylboronic acid, amine, and hydroxyl groups and contains many reversible and dynamic bonds such as multiple hydrogen bonds and boronate ester bonds, thereby showing satisfactory mechanical properties, fast self-healing ability, and desirable tissue-adhesive performance. Benefiting from the high photothermal conversion efficiency of the TFe, the hydrogel exhibits satisfactory antibacterial activity against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. Moreover, the embedded TFe also endows the hydrogel with good antioxidant activity, antiinflammatory property, and cell proliferation to promote tissue regeneration. Remarkably, in vivo animal assays reveal that the hybrid hydrogel effectively eliminates biofilm bacteria in the wound sites and accelerates the healing process of infected wounds. Taken together, the developed versatile hydrogels overcome the shortcomings of traditional wound dressings and are expected to become potential antibacterial dressings for future biomedical applications.

Pathogenic bacterial infections of skin wounds have caused a significant threat to clinical treatment and human life safety. Here, we develop a bactericidal hydrogel dressing consisting of a polyacrylamide (PAM) hydrogel framework with in situ surfacedeposition of iron-dopped polydopamine (FePDA). The prepared hydrogel dressing (FePDA−PAM) has a compact surface, good tensile strength, and excellent elastic recovery ability. The introduction of Fe 3+ ions improve the photothermal therapy (PTT) efficiency of the PDA and endow the hydrogel dressing with chemodynamic therapy (CDT) properties. In vitro experiments show that the antibacterial effect of FePDA−PAM hydrogel on Staphylococcus aureus reach nearly 100% under the combined action of H 2 O 2 and 808 nm near-infrared (NIR) laser, indicating an excellent combined antibacterial property of PTT and CDT. Furthermore, the FePDA−PAM + H 2 O 2 + NIR treatment group in the in vivo antibacterial experiments displays lowest relative wound area and optimal wound healing within 5 days of treatment, thereby indicating the intensive skin wound disinfection. To summarize, the FePDA−PAM hydrogel has simple preparation and good biosafety. It may serve as a potential wound dressing for the combined PTT/CDT dual-mode antibacterial therapy.