Injectable Antimicrobial Conductive Hydrogels for Wound Disinfection and Infectious Wound Healing

Abstract

As the abuse of antibiotics continues to increase, the emergence of antibiotic resistance and unknown drug-resistant bacterial infections pose a great threat on people worldwide. In this work, we aimed to develop a series of injectable antimicrobial conductive hydrogels based on glycidyl methacrylate functionalized quaternized chitosan (QCSG), gelatin methacrylate (GM), and graphene oxide (GO) for drug-resistant bacterial disinfection and infectious wound healing. The rheology, morphology, mechanical properties, and electrical and photothermal properties of the hydrogels were characterized. Furthermore, the good in vitro and in vivo intrinsic antibacterial, photothermal antibacterial, and antibiotics released antibacterial properties of this multiantibacterial hydrogel were verified. The good biocompatibility of these hydrogels was also investigated by cytocompatibility, hemocompatibility, and histocompatibility tests. In the drug-resistant Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infected mouse full-thickness defect model, the wound closure rate, the length of dermal tissue gap, number of blood vessels and hair follicles in hematoxylin-eosin (HE) staining, the amount of collagen in Masson staining, and the related cytokines for the expression of inflammation (interleukin-6, IL-6) and regeneration of blood vessels (vascular endothelial growth factor, VEGF) in immunofluorescence were all further studied. All the results demonstrated the better wound healing effect of these multiantibacterial injectable conductive hydrogel in infectious skin tissue defect repair, indicating their great potential for infected wound healing.

Human Salivary Histatin-1 Is More Efficacious in Promoting Acute Skin Wound Healing Than Acellular Dermal Matrix Paste

“…Recent studies show that conductive photothermal self-healing nanocomposite hydrogels wound dressing bear good biocompatibility, biodegradability, mechanical properties, photothermal properties, antibacterial and sustained drug release behavior for wound healing application, even in bacteria-infected wounds (Liang et al, 2019). It would be worth evaluating the efficacy of Hst1 in combination with such multifunctional hydrogels (He et al, 2020;Liang et al, 2020). One limitation of skin model in mice is that contracture also plays a role in wound healing.…”

<p>Comparative Analysis of the Effectiveness of Some Biological Injected Wound Healing Stimulators and Criteria for Its Evaluation</p>

“…A separate discussion is required for the treatment of chronic-infected wounds and the development of new highly effective injectable antibacterial agents, work on which is already underway. [34][35][36] Success in this direction would make it possible to abandon the long-term use of antibiotics, and possibly to solve the problem of antibiotic resistance. In our study, wound infection did not occur, despite the aseptic conditions of wound modeling.…”

Nanoparticle-Based Therapeutic Approach for Diabetic Wound Healing

“…It was noted that IL-6 expression (a biological cytokine plays a significant role in inflammatory response and secreted by several types of cells) in the wounds of the hydrogel-treated group was lower than that of the Tegaderm group on the third day, while inflammation was significantly reduced on the 7th day. Moreover, injectable QCSG/GM/GO hydrogels with antibiotics accelerated infectious skin defect wounds compared to commercially available Tegaderm with an increase in collagen deposition and re-epithelialization [ 127 ].…”