Novel drug‐eluting soy‐protein structures for wound healing applications

Soy Protein-Based Wound Dressings: A Review of Their Preparation, Properties, and Perspectives

Wound healing is a major challenge worldwide, and people have been researching wound dressings that can promote wound healing for decades. Natural biobased materials, such as polysaccharides and proteins, have been widely used in the development of wound dressings. Among them, soy protein-based materials have attracted the interest of a wide range of researchers due to their safety, biocompatibility, controlled degradation, and ability to be mixed with other materials. However, there has been a lack of comments on these soy protein-based wound dressings. This work reviews various forms of soy protein-based wound dressings, such as hydrogels, films, and others, which could be prepared through physical/chemical cross-linking with synthetic or natural polymers. The important role played by soy protein-based materials in the wound healing phase and their properties will be examined, such as their anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, angiogenesis-promoting, cellular biocompatibility, self-healing ability, adhesion, antimicrobial, and tunable mechanical properties. Additionally, insights into the market prospects and trends for soy protein dressings are provided, clarifying the enormous development potential of soy protein as a new type of wound repair material.

Films for Wound Healing Fabricated Using a Solvent Casting Technique

Wound healing is a complex process that involves restoring the structure of damaged tissues through four phases: hemostasis, inflammation, proliferation, and remodeling. Wound dressings are the most common treatment used to cover wounds, reduce infection risk and the loss of physiological fluids, and enhance wound healing. Despite there being several types of wound dressings based on different materials and fabricated through various techniques, polymeric films have been widely employed due to their biocompatibility and low immunogenicity. Furthermore, they are non-invasive, easy to apply, allow gas exchange, and can be transparent. Among different methods for designing polymeric films, solvent casting represents a reliable, preferable, and highly used technique due to its easygoing and relatively low-cost procedure compared to sophisticated methods such as spin coating, microfluidic spinning, or 3D printing. Therefore, this review focuses on the polymeric dressings obtained using this technique, emphasizing the critical manufacturing factors related to pharmaceuticals, specifically discussing the formulation variables necessary to create wound dressings that demonstrate effective performance.

Preparation, Characteristics, and Advantages of Plant Protein-Based Bioactive Molecule Delivery Systems

As a renewable resource, the market trend of plant protein has increased significantly in recent years. Compared with animal protein, plant protein production has strong sustainability factors and a lower environmental impact. Many bioactive substances have poor stability, and poor absorption effects limit their application in food. Plant protein-based carriers could improve the water solubility, stability, and bioavailability of bioactive substances by different types of delivery systems. In this review, we present a detailed and concise summary of the effects and advantages of various plant protein-based carriers in the encapsulation, protection, and delivery of bioactive substances. Furthermore, the research progress of food-grade bioactive ingredient delivery systems based on plant protein preparation in recent years is summarized, and some current challenges and future research priorities are highlighted. There are some key findings and conclusions: (i) plant proteins have numerous functions: as carriers for transportation systems, a shell or core of a system, or food ingredients; (ii) plant protein-based carriers could improve the water solubility, stability, and bioavailability of bioactive substances by different types of delivery systems; and (iii) plant protein-based carriers stabilize bioactive substances with potential applications in the food and nutrition fields.

Seaweed cellulose scaffolds derived from green macroalgae for tissue engineering

Extracellular matrix (ECM) provides structural support for cell growth, attachments and proliferation, which greatly impact cell fate. Marine macroalgae species Ulva sp. and Cladophora sp. were selected for their structural variations, porous and fibrous respectively, and evaluated as alternative ECM candidates. Decellularization-recellularization approach was used to fabricate seaweed cellulose-based scaffolds for in-vitro mammalian cell growth. Both scaffolds were confirmed nontoxic to fibroblasts, indicated by high viability for up to 40 days in culture. Each seaweed cellulose structure demonstrated distinct impact on cell behavior and proliferation rates. The Cladophora sp. scaffold promoted elongated cells spreading along its fibers' axis, and a gradual linear cell growth, while the Ulva sp. porous surface, facilitated rapid cell growth in all directions, reaching saturation at week 3. As such, seaweed-cellulose is an environmentally, biocompatible novel biomaterial, with structural variations that hold a great potential for diverse biomedical applications, while promoting aquaculture and ecological agenda.

In vitro characterization of novel multidrug-eluting soy protein wound dressings

Polymers derived from natural sources are of interest in the scientific and medical communities, especially soy protein which exhibits low immunogenicity and good mechanical properties, and supports cell proliferation. Soy protein is cost-effective compared to other natural polymers and is attractive also due to its non-animal origin and relatively long storage stability. In the current study, hybrid film structures were developed and studied as a novel wound dressing platform with controlled release of three bioactive agents. The dense top layer is designed to provide mechanical support, control the water vapor permeability and to elute the antibiotic drug cloxacillin and the analgesic drug bupivacaine to the wound site. The porous sub-layer is designed to absorb the wound exudates and release the hemostatic agent tranexamic acid for bleeding control. The results show that the formulation parameters, i.e. crosslinker and plasticizer concentrations, affected the mechanical properties of the wound dressings as well as relevant physical properties (water vapor transmission rate and swelling kinetics), but had almost no effect on the drug-release profiles. While the antibiotic drug and the analgesic drug were released within several hours, the hemostatic agent was released within several minutes, according to the well designed hybrid structure. In conclusion, our novel soy protein hybrid wound dressings are biocompatible, can deliver various drugs simultaneously in a controlled fashion for each drug individually, and can be adjusted to suit various types of wounds by altering their properties through formulation effects.