Nanomaterials in Wound Healing and Infection Control

Abstract

Wounds continue to be a serious medical concern due to their increasing incidence from injuries, surgery, burns and chronic diseases such as diabetes. Delays in the healing process are influenced by infectious microbes, especially when they are in the biofilm form, which leads to a persistent infection. Biofilms are well known for their increased antibiotic resistance. Therefore, the development of novel wound dressing drug formulations and materials with combined antibacterial, antibiofilm and wound healing properties are required. Nanomaterials (NM) have unique properties due to their size and very large surface area that leads to a wide range of applications. Several NMs have antimicrobial activity combined with wound regeneration features thus give them promising applicability to a variety of wound types. The idea of NM-based antibiotics has been around for a decade at least and there are many recent reviews of the use of nanomaterials as antimicrobials. However, far less attention has been given to exploring if these NMs actually improve wound healing outcomes. In this review, we present an overview of different types of nanomaterials explored specifically for wound healing properties combined with infection control.

Chitosan-Coated PLGA Nanoparticles Loaded with Peganum harmala Alkaloids with Promising Antibacterial and Wound Healing Activities

“…It showed the capacity to decrease the wound epithelial gap and increase the collagen and fibroblasts in the wound microenvironment, resulting in a rapid and effective healing process [ 10 ]. Despite the current clinical use of many wound healing agents, they still suffer from being sensitive to the wound microenvironment, leading to unsatisfactory structural and functional clinical outcomes [ 11 ].…”

Green Synthesized Silver Nanoparticles Using Tridax Procumbens for Topical Application: Excision Wound Model and Histopathological Studies

“…These antibacterial effects of AgNPs could be due to the action of silver ion (Ag+); disruption and perforation of the bacterial cell wall, denaturation of membrane and ribosomes, protein synthesis inhibition, interruption, and interference of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) production and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) replication, respectively. AgNPs reported diameters are usually ≤100 nm, encompass about 20 to 15,000 silver (Ag) atoms due to their enormous surface-to-volume ratio, exhibit significant antimicrobial effects even at a low concentration [4][5][6].…”

The Emerging Role of Ionic Liquid-Based Approaches for Enhanced Skin Permeation of Bioactive Molecules: A Snapshot of the Past Couple of Years

“…Notwithstanding, graphene oxide-based NCs have been lately highlighted for topical applications [ 108 ], including as bioactive agents able to tackle cSSTI per se [ 109 , 110 ]. Other carbon-based inorganic NCs have also been explored to tackle skin disorders, with emphasis on wound healing and control of cSSTI, as recently revised elsewhere [ 111 ]. Additional examples on use of inorganic NCs for DTD of [bio]pharmaceuticals mainly address combination with physical methods, in particular with microneedle-based technologies [ 112 , 113 , 114 ].…”