Dynamically crosslinked protien hydrogel composite as multifunctional wound dressing for cutaneous infection
Wanli Xie, Yijian Zhang, Jinyi Zhang, Xu Chen, Jianming Pan, Xuesong Zhu, Guoqing Pan
Abstract
In this work, we reported a dynamic hydrogel with sodium houttuyfonate (SH) for management of infected skin injuries. The hydrogel was designed by reversible crosslinking of phenylboronic acid-modified gelatin with diol-rich polyvinyl alcohol. Due to the reversible interactions between phenylboronic acid and diols, the resultant hydrogel exhibited typical dynamic nature including self-recovery and injectability. When the hydrogel was loaded SH, a highly shape-adapted, bactericidal and pro-healing hydrogel wound dressing was obtained. In vitro and in vivo experiments demonstrated that the SH-loaded hydrogel could significantly suppress infection and accelerate infected skin wound healing. It was further revealed that the improved wound healing depended on not only SH-assisted antibacterial ability but also the pro-healing effect caused by HIF-1α-associated antioxidative activity. Due to the dynamic of our hydrogel and the natural bioactivity of SH, this multifunctional wound dressing shows great potential as anti-infective and pro-healing tissue protective materials for management of skin infection.