Self-Assembly and Mechanical Properties of Engineered Protein Based Multifunctional Nanofiber for Accelerated Wound Healing

In Situ Nanoencapsulation of Curcumin in Soy Protein Isolate Amyloid-like Aggregates for Enhanced Wound Healing

The importance of amyloid nanofibrils made from food proteins is rising in diverse fields, such as biomedicine and food science. These protein nanofibrils (PNFs) serve as versatile and sustainable building blocks for biomaterials, characterized by their high β-sheet content and an ordered hydrogen bond network. These properties offer both stability and flexibility, along with an extreme aspect ratio and reactive functional groups. Plant-derived amyloid nanofibrils, such as soy protein isolate (SPI) PNFs, are increasingly favored due to their affordability and sustainability compared with animal proteins. This study aimed to explore the formation and application of SPI amyloid-like aggregates (SPIA) and their nanoencapsulation of curcumin (Cur) for biomedical purposes, particularly in wound healing. Under specific conditions of low pH and high temperature, SPIA formed, exhibited an amyloid nature, and successfully encapsulated Cur, thereby enhancing its stability and availability. Spectroscopic and microscopic analyses confirmed structural changes in SPIA upon the incorporation of Cur and the fabrication of SPIA@Cur. The obtained results indicate that in the presence of Cur, SPIA forms faster, attributed to accelerated SPI denaturation, an increased nucleation rate, and enhanced self-assembly facilitated by Cur's hydrophobic interactions and π-π stacking with SPI peptides. In vitro studies demonstrated the biocompatibility, biodegradability, and antioxidant properties of SPIA@Cur along with controlled release behavior. In vivo experiments in male Wistar rats revealed that both SPIA and SPIA@Cur significantly accelerate wound closure compared with untreated wounds, with SPIA@Cur showing slightly better efficacy. The histological analysis supported enhanced wound healing, indicating the potential of SPIA@Cur for biomedical applications.

Periodontium-Mimicking, Multifunctional Biomass-Based Hydrogel Promotes Full-Course Socket Healing

Preserving stable tooth-periodontal tissue integration is vital for maintaining alveolar bone stability under physiological conditions. However, tooth extraction compromises this integration and impedes socket healing. Therefore, it becomes crucial to provide early stage coverage of the socket to promote optimal healing. Drawing inspiration from the periodontium, we have developed a quaternized methacryloyl chitosan/dopamine-grafted oxidized sodium alginate hydrogel, termed the quaternized methacryloyl chitosan/dopamine-grafted oxidized sodium alginate hydrogel (QDL hydrogel). Through blue-light-induced cross-linking, the QDL hydrogel serves as a comprehensive wound dressing for socket healing. The QDL hydrogel exhibits remarkable efficacy in closing irregular tooth extraction wounds. Its favorable mechanical properties, flexible formability, and strong adhesion are achieved through modifications of chitosan and sodium alginate derived from biomass sources. Moreover, the QDL hydrogel demonstrates a superior hemostatic ability, facilitating swift blood clot formation. Additionally, the inherent antibacterial properties of the QDL hydrogel effectively inhibit oral microorganisms. Furthermore, the QDL hydrogel promotes angiogenesis, which facilitates the nutrient supply for subsequent tissue regeneration. Notably, the hydrogel accelerates socket healing by upregulating the expression of genes associated with wound healing. In conclusion, the periodontium-mimicking multifunctional hydrogel exhibits significant potential as a clinical tooth extraction wound dressing.

Sodium alginate/poly(vinyl alcohol)/taxifolin nanofiber mat promoting diabetic wound healing by modulating the inflammatory response, angiogenesis, and skin flora

Diabetes-related ulcers are still a therapeutic problem because of their susceptibility to infection, ongoing inflammation, and diminished vascularization. The design and development of novel dressings are clinically urgent for the treatment of chronic wounds due to diabetic ulcers. In this study, we made taxifolin (TAX) loaded sodium alginate (SA)/poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) nanofibers for the treatment of chronic wounds. The SA/PVA/TAX nanofibers that have been created are smooth and bead-free, with good thermal stability, hydrophilicity, and mechanical properties. The release profile indicated a sustained drug release, with a cumulative release rate of 64.6 ± 3.7 % at 24 h. In vitro experiments have shown that SA/PVA/TAX has good antibacterial activity, antioxidant activity, and biocompatibility. In vivo experiments have shown that SA/PVA/TAX exhibits desirable biochemical properties and is involved in the diabetic wound healing process by promoting cell proliferation (Ki67), angiogenesis (CD31, VEGFA), and alleviating inflammation (CD68). Western blotting experiments suggest that SA/PVA/TAX may promote diabetic wound healing by inhibiting the TLR4/NF-κB/NLRP3 signaling pathway and upregulating the expression of VEGFA and PDGFA. The 16S rRNA sequencing results showed that SA/PVA/TAX increased the wound surface flora's diversity and reversed the skin microbiota's structural imbalance. Therefore, SA/PVA/TAX can promote diabetic wound healing by modulating the inflammatory response, angiogenesis, and skin flora and has the potential to be an excellent wound dressing.

Injectable Antiswelling and High-Strength Bioactive Hydrogels with a Wet Adhesion and Rapid Gelling Process to Promote Sutureless Wound Closure and Scar-free Repair of Infectious Wounds

Developing injectable antiswelling and high-strength bioactive hydrogels with wet tissue adhesiveness and a rapid gelling process to meet the requirements for rapid hemostasis, sutureless wound closure, and scar-free repair of infected skin wounds continues to have ongoing challenges. Herein, injectable, antibacterial, and antioxidant hydrogel adhesives based on poly(citric acid-co-polyethylene glycol)-g-dopamine and amino-terminated Pluronic F127 (APF) micelles loaded with astragaloside IV (AS) are prepared. The H2O2/horseradish peroxidase (HRP) system is used to cause cross-linking of the hydrogel network through oxidative coupling between catechol groups and chemical cross-linking between the catechol group and the amino group. The hydrogels exhibit a rapid gelling process, high mechanical strength, an antiswelling effect, good antioxidant property, H2O2 release behavior, and degradability. In addition, the hydrogels present good wet tissue adhesiveness, high bursting pressure, excellent antibacterial activity, long-term sustained release of AS, and good biocompatibility. The hydrogels perform good hemostasis on mouse liver, rat liver, and rabbit femoral vein bleeding models and achieve much better closure and healing of skin incisions than biomedical glue and surgical sutures. Furthermore, the hydrogel dressing significantly improved the scar-free repair of MRSA-infected full thickness skin defect wounds by modulating inflammation, regulating the ratio of collagen I/III, and improving the vascularization and granulation tissue formation. Thus, AS-loaded hydrogels show huge potential as multifunctional dressings for in vivo hemostasis, sutureless wound closure, and scar-free repair of infected skin wounds.

Perspectives on recent advancements in energy harvesting, sensing and bio-medical applications of piezoelectric gels

The development of next-generation bioelectronics, as well as the powering of consumer and medical devices, require power sources that are soft, flexible, extensible, and even biocompatible. Traditional energy storage devices (typically, batteries and supercapacitors) are rigid, unrecyclable, offer short-lifetime, contain hazardous chemicals and possess poor biocompatibility, hindering their utilization in wearable electronics. Therefore, there is a genuine unmet need for a new generation of innovative energy-harvesting materials that are soft, flexible, bio-compatible, and bio-degradable. Piezoelectric gels or PiezoGels are a smart crystalline form of gels with polar ordered structures that belongs to the broader family of piezoelectric material, which generate electricity in response to mechanical stress or deformation. Given that PiezoGels are structurally similar to hydrogels, they offer several advantages including intrinsic chirality, crystallinity, degree of ordered structures, mechanical flexibility, biocompatibility, and biodegradability, emphasizing their potential applications ranging from power generation to bio-medical applications. Herein, we describe recent examples of new functional PiezoGel materials employed for energy harvesting, sensing, and wound dressing applications. First, this review focuses on the principles of piezoelectric generators (PEGs) and the advantages of using hydrogels as PiezoGels in energy and biomedical applications. Next, we provide a detailed discussion on the preparation, functionalization, and fabrication of PiezoGel-PEGs (P-PEGs) for the applications of energy harvesting, sensing and wound healing/dressing. Finally, this review concludes with a discussion of the current challenges and future directions of P-PEGs.

Electroactive nanofibrous membrane with temperature monitoring for wound healing

Developing functional dressings for promoting cellular activities and monitoring the healing progress is receiving increasingly widespread attention. In this study, Ag/Zn electrodes were deposited on the surface of a polylactic acid (PLA) nanofibrous membrane which can mimic the extracellular matrix. When wetted by wound exudate, the Ag/Zn electrodes could generate an electric stimulation (ES), promoting the migration of fibroblasts that heal wounds. Moreover, the Ag/Zn@PLA dressing showed excellent antibacterial activity against E. coli (95%) and S. aureus (97%). The study found that the electrostatic (ES) effect and the release of metal ions mainly contribute to the wound healing properties of Ag/Zn@PLA. In vivo mouse models demonstrated that Ag/Zn@PLA could promote wound healing by improving re-epithelialization, collagen deposition, and neovascularization. Additionally, the integrated sensor within the Ag/Zn@PLA dressing can monitor the wound site's temperature in real-time, providing timely information on wound inflammatory reactions. Overall, this work suggests that combining electroactive therapy and wound temperature monitoring may provide a new strategy for designing functional wound dressings.

Antioxidant Biomaterials in Cutaneous Wound Healing and Tissue Regeneration: A Critical Review

Natural-based biomaterials play an important role in developing new products for medical applications, primarily in cutaneous injuries. A large panel of biomaterials with antioxidant properties has revealed an advancement in supporting and expediting tissue regeneration. However, their low bioavailability in preventing cellular oxidative stress through the delivery system limits their therapeutic activity at the injury site. The integration of antioxidant compounds in the implanted biomaterial should be able to maintain their antioxidant activity while facilitating skin tissue recovery. This review summarises the recent literature that reported the role of natural antioxidant-incorporated biomaterials in promoting skin wound healing and tissue regeneration, which is supported by evidence from in vitro, in vivo, and clinical studies. Antioxidant-based therapies for wound healing have shown promising evidence in numerous animal studies, even though clinical studies remain very limited. We also described the underlying mechanism of reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and provided a comprehensive review of ROS-scavenging biomaterials found in the literature in the last six years.

Rational design of porous structure-based sodium alginate/chitosan sponges loaded with green synthesized hybrid antibacterial agents for infected wound healing

An ideal wound dressing should have excellent antimicrobial properties and provide a suitable microenvironment for regenerating damaged skin tissue. In this study, we utilized sericin to biosynthesize silver nanoparticles in situ and introduced curcumin to obtain Sericin-AgNPs/Curcumin (Se-Ag/Cur) antimicrobial agent. The hybrid antimicrobial agent was then encapsulated in a physically double cross-linking 3D structure network (Sodium alginate-Chitosan, SC) to obtain the SC/Se-Ag/Cur composite sponge. The 3D structural networks were constructed through electrostatic interactions between sodium alginate and chitosan and ionic interactions between sodium alginate and calcium ions. The prepared composite sponges have excellent hygroscopicity (contact angle 51.3° ± 5.6°), moisture retention ability, porosity (67.32 % ± 3.37 %), and mechanical properties (>0.7 MPa) and exhibit good antibacterial ability against Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus). In addition, in vivo experiments have shown that the composite sponge promotes epithelial regeneration and collagen deposition in wounds infected with S. aureus or P. aeruginosa. Tissue immunofluorescence staining analysis confirmed that the SC/Se-Ag/Cur complex sponge stimulated upregulated expression of CD31 to promote angiogenesis while downregulating TNF-α expression to reduce inflammation. These advantages make it an ideal candidate for infectious wound repair materials, providing an effective repair strategy for clinical skin trauma infections.

Electrochemical Response of Redox Amino Acid Encoded Fluorescence Protein for Hydroxychloroquine Sensing

The sudden rise in the demand has led to large-scale production of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) in the global market for various diseases such as malaria, rheumatic arthritis, and systemic lupus erythematous and prophylactic treatment of early SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. Thorough monitoring of HCQ intake patients is in high demand; hence, we have developed a redox amino acid encoded fluorescent protein-based electrochemical biosensor for sensitive and selective detection of HCQ. This electrochemical biosensor is generated based on the two-electron transfer process between redox amino acid (3,4-dihydroxy-L-phenylalanine, DOPA) encoded bio-redox protein and the HCQ forms the conjugate. The DOPA residue in the bio-redox protein specifically binds with HCQ, thereby producing a remarkable electrochemical response on the glassy carbon electrode. Experimental results show that the developed biosensor selectively and sensitively detects the HCQ in spiked urine samples. The reagent-free bio-redox capacitor detects HCQ in the range of 90 nM to 4.4 µM in a solution with a detection limit of 58 nM, signal to noise ratio of 3:1, and strong anti-interference ability. Real-time screening, quantification, and relative mean recoveries of HCQ on spiked urine samples were monitored through electron shuttling using bio-redox protein and were found to be 97 to 101%. Overall, the developed bio-redox protein-based sensor has specificity, selectivity, reproducibility, and sensitivity making it potentially attractive for the sensing of HCQ and also applicable to clinical research.

Icy core-shell composite nanofibers with cooling, antibacterial and healing properties for outdoor burns

Burns are usually difficult to treat because their susceptibe to bacterial infections. When burns is accompanied by hyperthermia, the heat accumulated on the skin will causes extensive tissue damage. Most dressings focus on the treatment process, while ignoring the first-aid treatment to remove hyperthermia. To make matters worse, when outdoors, it is hard to find clean water to wash and cool the burned area. A dressing which can simultaneously realize first-time cooling and repairing treatment of the burned area can shorten treatment time, and is especially beneficial for outdoor use. In this study, a handheld coaxial electrospinning device is developed for preparing platelet-rich plasma @Polycaprolactone-epsilon polylysine (PRP@PCL/ε-PL) core-shell nanofibers. The nanofibers can be synchronously transformed into ice fibers during the spinning process, and directly deposited on the skin. The whole process is convenient to use outdoor. Via dual cooling mechanisms, first aid can take away the excessive heat in the burn area by nanofibers. These core-shell nanofibers also show its excellent antimicrobial and tissue regeneration-promoting properties. Therefore, it achieves first-time cooling and repair treatment of the burned area at the same time. Moreover, due to direct in-situ deposition of this handheld coaxial electrospinning, better antimicrobial properties, and faster healing performance are achieved. By using this integrated strategy that combines cooling, antibacterial and healing promotion, the burn recovery time is shortened from 21 days to 14 days.

Recombinant and genetic code expanded collagen-like protein as a tailorable biomaterial

Collagen occurs in nature with a dedicated triple helix structure and is the most preferred biomaterial in commercialized medical products. However, concerns on purity, disease transmission, and the reproducibility of animal derived collagen restrict its applications and warrants alternate recombinant sources. The expression of recombinant collagen in different prokaryotic and eukaryotic hosts has been reported with varying degrees of success, however, it is vital to elucidate the structural and biological characteristics of natural collagen. The recombinant production of biologically functional collagen is restricted by its high molecular weight and post-translational modification (PTM), especially the hydroxylation of proline to hydroxyproline. Hydroxyproline plays a key role in the structural stability and higher order self-assembly to form fibrillar matrices. Advancements in synthetic biology and recombinant technology are being explored for improving the yield and biomimicry of recombinant collagen. It emerges as reliable, sustainable source of collagen, promises tailorable properties and thereby custom-made protein biomaterials. Remarkably, the evolutionary existence of collagen-like proteins (CLPs) has been identified in single-cell organisms. Interestingly, CLPs exhibit remarkable ability to form stable triple helical structures similar to animal collagen and have gained increasing attention. Strategies to expand the genetic code of CLPs through the incorporation of unnatural amino acids promise the synthesis of highly tunable next-generation triple helical proteins required for the fabrication of smart biomaterials. The review outlines the importance of collagen, sources and diversification, and animal and recombinant collagen-based biomaterials and highlights the limitations of the existing collagen sources. The emphasis on genetic code expanded tailorable CLPs as the most sought alternate for the production of functional collagen and its advantages as translatable biomaterials has been highlighted.

Recent Progress in Electrospun Polyacrylonitrile Nanofiber-Based Wound Dressing

Bleeding control plays a very important role in worldwide healthcare, which also promotes research and development of wound dressings. The wound healing process involves four stages of hemostasis, inflammation, proliferation and remodeling, which is a complex process, and wound dressings play a huge role in it. Electrospinning technology is simple to operate. Electrospun nanofibers have a high specific surface area, high porosity, high oxygen permeability, and excellent mechanical properties, which show great utilization value in the manufacture of wound dressings. As one of the most popular reactive and functional synthetic polymers, polyacrylonitrile (PAN) is frequently explored to create nanofibers for a wide variety of applications. In recent years, researchers have invested in the application of PAN nanofibers in wound dressings. Research on spun nanofibers is reviewed, and future development directions and prospects of electrospun PAN nanofibers for wound dressings are proposed.

SF/PVP nanofiber wound dressings loaded with phlorizin: preparation, characterization, in vivo and in vitro evaluation

Electrospinning-based wound dressings have multiple functions such as antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and therapeutic, and are important in skin wound care. Herein, we designed a phlorizin (PHL)-loaded silk protein/polyvinylpyrrolidone (SF/PVP) composite nanofibrous membrane, which can be used as multiple wound dressings. In particular, SF/PVP/PHL scaffolds have high porosity and mechanical properties, exhibiting suitable permeability and hydrophilicity. The SF/PVP/PHL scaffolds containing PHL also have excellent antibacterial and antioxidant activities. Furthermore, the nanofiber significantly accelerated the wound healing process in a full-thickness skin injury model by enhancing wound re-epithelialization and collagen deposition density, increasing the content of macrophage antigen (CD68), platelet-endothelial cell adhesion molecule (CD31), proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and inhibiting the expression of α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) at the wound site. The mechanism may be related to the inhibition of activation of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/serine-threonine kinase/ target of rapamycin (PI3K/AKT/mTOR) signaling pathway to enhance autophagy. Therefore, SF/PVP/PHL nanofibers can ideally meet the various requirements of the wound healing process and are promising wound dressing candidates for future clinical applications.

Self-Healing Behavior of Polymer/Protein Hybrid Hydrogels

The paper presents the viscoelastic properties of new hybrid hydrogels containing poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), hydroxypropylcellulose (HPC), bovine serum albumin (BSA) and reduced glutathione (GSH). After heating the mixture at 55 °C, in the presence of GSH, a weak network is formed due to partial BSA unfolding. By applying three successive freezing/thawing cycles, a stable porous network structure with elastic properties is designed, as evidenced by SEM and rheology. The hydrogels exhibit self-healing properties when the samples are cut into two pieces; the intermolecular interactions are reestablished in time and therefore the fragments repair themselves. The effects of the BSA content, loaded deformation and temperature on the self-healing ability of hydrogels are presented and discussed through rheological data. Due to their versatile viscoelastic behavior, the properties of PVA/HPC/BSA hydrogels can be tuned during their preparation in order to achieve suitable biomaterials for targeted applications.