A Plant Extract-Based, Non-Invasive, Drug-Free Wound Dressing for Treating Bacterial Infections with Enhanced Wound Healing

Abstract

A multifunctional hydrogel was designed by integrating the photothermal carbon dot with a NO-releasing moiety (GSNOCD) within an oxidized sodium alginate conjugated polyacrylamide (OS@PA) matrix to enhance wound healing along with removal of bacterial infections during the healing process. The novel hydrogel patch showed unique features like skin adhesion, self-healing, on-demand removability, biocompatibility, high photothermal efficiency (47.1% ), and NIR-controlled NO release (31.7 mg/L, 808nm, 10 min). The synergetic effect of NO gas therapy and photothermal therapy under 808nm laser successfully reduced the viability of both Staphylococcus aureus (Gram-positive) and Escherichia coli (Gram-negative) to 3 and 5%, respectively with effective fibroblast proliferation in a cell scratch assay