Squid Suckerin-Spider Silk Fusion Protein Hydrogel for Delivery of Mesenchymal Stem Cell Secretome to Chronic Wounds

Advancing wound healing by hydrogel-based dressings loaded with cell-conditioned medium: a systematic review

BACKGROUND

Wound healing represents a complex biological process, critically important in clinical practice due to its direct implication in a patient's recovery and quality of life. Conservative wound management frequently falls short in providing an ideal environment for the optimal tissue regeneration, often resulting in extended healing periods and elevated risk of infection and other complications. The emerging biomaterials, particularly hydrogels, have shown substantial promise in addressing these challenges by offering properties such as biocompatibility, biodegradability, and the ability to cure wound environment. Recent advancements have highlighted the therapeutic potential of integrating cell-derived conditioned medium (CM) into hydrogel matrices. Cell-derived CM represents a rich array of bioactive molecules, demonstrating significant efficacy in modulating cellular activities crucial for wound healing, including cellular proliferation, migration, and angiogenesis.

METHODS

The methodology of this review adheres to the standards set by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. The review includes a selection of studies published within the last five years, focusing on in vivo experiments involving various types of skin injuries treated with topically applied hydrogels loaded with CM (H-CM). The search strategy refers to the PICO framework and includes the assessment of study quality by CAMARADES tool.

RESULTS

The systematic review represents a detailed evaluation of H-CM dressings wound healing efficiency based on the experimental results of cell-based assays and animal wound models. The study targets to reveal wound healing capacity of H-CM dressings, and provides a comparative data analysis, limitations of methods and discussions of H-CM role in advancing the wound healing therapy.

CONCLUSIONS

The data presented demonstrate that H-CM is a promising material for advanced wound healing and regenerative medicine. These dressings possess proved in vitro/in vivo efficacy that highlights their strong clinical potential and paves the way to further investigations of H-CM formulations within clinical trials.

Hybrid biological macromolecules spider-silk fibroin optical patches for efficient wound healing

Efforts toward developing wound dressings that effectively monitor healing have become at the forefront of the field of wound healing. However, monofunctionality, biotoxicity, and passive therapy constrain wound patches. Herein, a hypoallergenic wound patch integrating moisture monitoring, motion sensing and electrical stimulation for wound healing is presented. Microstructured patches composed of silk proteins and spider silk proteins (MIS) fused together were structurally transformed and crosslinked by spin-coating a mixture of silk proteins (SFs) and spider silk proteins (SPs) with water-soluble polyurethane (PU), creating MIS patches with microstructures by hot embossing. This is attributed to stable SF-SP hydrogen bonding, which provides an extremely rapid response to humidity and endows the patch with superior motion sensing tensile properties. Notably, β-folding and α-helical structures confer SP toughness and strength, producing electrical charges under electrical stimulation occurring with motor stretching, thereby enabling electrical stimulation for quicker wound healing. Specifically, The MIS is sensitive to changes in humidity, which is reflected in changes in the colour of its surface patches. Also it enhances the strength of the electrical stimulation signal more effectively as the thickness of the film layer increases. These characteristics indicate the high potential of the MIS for wound management.

Waste-to-resource: Extraction and transformation of aquatic biomaterials for regenerative medicine

The fisheries and aquaculture industry are known for generating substantial waste or by-products, often underutilized, or relegated to low-value purposes. However, this overlooked segment harbors a rich repository of valuable bioactive materials of which have a broad-spectrum of high-value applications. As the blue economy gains momentum and fisheries expand, sustainable exploitation of these aquatic resources is increasingly prioritized. In this review, we present a comprehensive overview of technology-enabled methods for extracting and transforming aquatic waste into valuable biomaterials and their recent advances in regenerative medicine applications, focusing on marine collagen, chitin/chitosan, calcium phosphate and bioactive-peptides. We discuss the inherent bioactive qualities of these "waste-to-resource" aquatic biomaterials and identify opportunities for their use in regenerative medicine to advance healthcare while achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

Genetic Functionalization of Protein-Based Biomaterials via Protein Fusions

Proteins implement many useful functions, including binding ligands with unparalleled affinity and specificity, catalyzing stereospecific chemical reactions, and directing cell behavior. Incorporating proteins into materials has the potential to imbue devices with these desirable traits. This review highlights recent advances in creating active materials by genetically fusing a self-assembling protein to a functional protein. These fusion proteins form materials while retaining the function of interest. Key advantages of this approach include elimination of a separate functionalization step during materials synthesis, uniform and dense coverage of the material by the functional protein, and stabilization of the functional protein. This review focuses on macroscale materials and discusses (i) multiple strategies for successful protein fusion design, (ii) successes and limitations of the protein fusion approach, (iii) engineering solutions to bypass any limitations, (iv) applications of protein fusion materials, including tissue engineering, drug delivery, enzyme immobilization, electronics, and biosensing, and (v) opportunities to further develop this useful technique.

Bioactive poly(salicylic acid)-poly(citric acid) scaffolds improve diabetic wound repair via regulating HIF-1α, Nrf2 and macrophage

Diabetic wounds environment is over-oxidized, over-inflammatory, leading to difficulties in regenerating blood vessels, and retardation of healing in diabetic wounds. Therefore, diabetic wounds can be treated from the perspective of scavenging oxidative free radicals and reducing the level of inflammation. Herein, we report a bioactive poly(salicylic acid)-poly(citric acid) (FPSa-PCG) hydrogel for diabetic wound repair. The FPSa-PCG hydrogel shows abilities of antioxidation, anti-inflammation, and regulation of macrophage phenotype. The FPSa-PCG hydrogel showed good biocompatibility, and obtain the abilities of promotion of macrophages migration, reduction of ROS generation, suppression of the M1-type macrophage polarization. FPSa and PCG could synergistically enhance the angiogenesis through upregulating the mRNA expression of HIF1Α, VEGF, and CD31 in endothelial cells and reduce the ROS level of macrophages through upregulating the mRNA expression of Nrf2. The in vivo diabetic wound model confirmed the promoting effect of FPSa-PCG hydrogel on wound closure in diabetes. The further studies found that FPSa-PCG hydrogel could induce the CD31 protein expression in the subcutaneous tissue and inhibit the TNF-a protein expression. This work shows that the simple composition FPSa-PCG hydrogel has a promising therapeutic potential in the treatment of diabetic wounds.

Bioinspired Squid Peptides─A Tale of Curiosity-Driven Research Leading to Unforeseen Biomedical Applications

The molecular design of many peptide-based materials originates from structural proteins identified in living organisms. Prominent examples that have garnered broad interdisciplinary research interest (chemistry, materials science, bioengineering, etc.) include elastin, silk, or mussel adhesive proteins. The critical first steps in this type of research are to identify a convenient model system of interest followed by sequencing the prevailing proteins from which these biological structures are assembled. In our laboratory, the main model systems for many years have been the hard biotools of cephalopods, particularly their parrot-like tough beak and their sucker ring teeth (SRT) embedded within the sucker cuptions that line the interior surfaces of their arms and tentacles. Unlike the majority of biological hard tissues, these structures are devoid of biominerals and consist of protein/polysaccharide biomolecular composites (the beak) or, in the case of SRT, are entirely made of proteins that are assembled by supramolecular interactions.In this Account, we chronicle our journey into the discovery of these intriguing biological materials. We initially focus on their excellent mechanical robustness followed by the identification and sequencing of the structural proteins from which they are built, using the latest "omics" techniques including next-generation sequencing and high-throughput proteomics. A common feature of these proteins is their modular architecture at the molecular level consisting of short peptide repeats. We describe the molecular design of these peptide building blocks, highlighting the consensus motifs identified to play a key role in biofabrication and in regulating the mechanical properties of the macroscopic biological material. Structure/property relationships unveiled through advanced spectroscopic and scattering techniques, including Raman, infrared, circular dichroism, and NMR spectroscopies as well as wide-angle and small-angle X-ray scattering, are also discussed.We then present recent developments in exploiting the discovered molecular designs to engineer peptides and their conjugates for promising biomedical applications. One example includes short peptide hydrogels that self-assemble entirely under aqueous conditions and simultaneously encapsulate large macromolecules during the gelation process. A second example involves peptide coacervate microdroplets produced by liquid-liquid phase separation. These microdroplets are capable of recruiting and delivering large macromolecular therapeutics (genes, mRNA, proteins, peptides, CRISPR/Cas 9 modalities, etc.) into mammalian cells, which introduces exciting prospects in cancer, gene, and immune therapies.This Account also serves as a testament to how curiosity-driven explorations, which may lack an obvious practical goal initially, can lead to discoveries with unexpected and promising translational potential.

Protein-Based Hydrogels and Their Biomedical Applications

Hydrogels made from proteins are attractive materials for diverse medical applications, as they are biocompatible, biodegradable, and amenable to chemical and biological modifications. Recent advances in protein engineering, synthetic biology, and material science have enabled the fine-tuning of protein sequences, hydrogel structures, and hydrogel mechanical properties, allowing for a broad range of biomedical applications using protein hydrogels. This article reviews recent progresses on protein hydrogels with special focus on those made of microbially produced proteins. We discuss different hydrogel formation strategies and their associated hydrogel properties. We also review various biomedical applications, categorized by the origin of protein sequences. Lastly, current challenges and future opportunities in engineering protein-based hydrogels are discussed. We hope this review will inspire new ideas in material innovation, leading to advanced protein hydrogels with desirable properties for a wide range of biomedical applications.