Biopolymers: Applications in wound healing and skin tissue engineering

Abstract

Wound is a growing healthcare challenge affecting several million worldwide. Lifestyle disorders such as diabetes increases the risk of wound complications. Effective management of wound is often difficult due to the complexity in the healing process. Addition to the conventional wound care practices, the bioactive polymers are gaining increased importance in wound care. Biopolymers are naturally occurring biomolecules synthesized by microbes, plants and animals with highest degree of biocompatibility. The bioactive properties such as antimicrobial, immune-modulatory, cell proliferative and angiogenic of the polymers create a microenvironment favorable for the healing process. The versatile properties of the biopolymers such as cellulose, alginate, hyaluronic acid, collagen, chitosan etc have been exploited in the current wound care market. With the technological advances in material science, regenerative medicine, nanotechnology, and bioengineering; the functional and structural characteristics of biopolymers can be improved to suit the current wound care demands such as tissue repair, restoration of lost tissue integrity and scarless healing. In this review we highlight on the sources, mechanism of action and bioengineering approaches adapted for commercial exploitation.

Physicochemical Characterization of Bilayer Hybrid Nanocellulose-Collagen as a Potential Wound Dressing

“…Water absorption capacity is an important characteristic of an ideal wound dressing to maintain a moist environment. Moist wounds are known to heal faster due to the adequate supply of growth factors and other molecules to the healing tissues [ 31 ]. Moreover, it helps to keep excessive exudates [ 32 ].…”

Antibacterial Activity of Bacterial Cellulose Loaded with Bacitracin and Amoxicillin: In Vitro Studies

“…Three free hydroxyl groups are present on each glucose ring of BC, so that the microfibers self-assemble into a bundle of fibers with a diameter of 10–100 nm due to the large number of hydrogen bonds, and then form a three-dimensional network of nanofibers with a large number of pores that can host both biological active substances, minerals, as well as cells [ 5 ]. Additionally, due to these hydroxyl groups, strong interactions can appear with the hydrophilic biological active agents (especially those bearing OH, COOH, NH 2 groups), which can be released from the cellulose-based supports in a controlled manner [ 6 , 7 ]. This network architecture confers to BC tremendous possibilities to be used in various fields but especially in the medical field as a skin wound and burn cure, artificial skin, artificial blood vessels, dental implants, scaffolds for tissue engineering, and drug delivery systems, with the porous structure ensuring an efficient cell attachment and high capacity of exudate adsorption [ 8 ].…”

Advances in the Biofabrication of 3D Skin in vitro: Healthy and Pathological Models

“…RGD motifs) to support cell adhesion and proliferation (Gonzalez de Torre et al, 2018 ). As outlined in this section many different biopolymers were used and developed to generate 3D skin models; however, collagen I, with the abovementioned limitations, is still predominantly used (Sahana and Rekha, 2018 ).…”