Aquaculture derived hybrid skin patches for wound healing

Abstract

• The proposed patches are based on the derivatives of fish and crabs. • The acellular fish skin present porous surface for drug loading. • The patch owns brilliant biocompatibility, antibacterial and angiogenesis capability. • The proposed patches show effect on accelerating wound healing Natural biomaterials have been widely applied in wound treatment. Hotspots in this area are focused on reducing their immunogenicity and improving their therapeutic effect. In this work, we present a novel aquaculture derived hybrid skin patch based on acellular fish skin (AFS) and chitosan (CS) for wound healing. Such functional patch was simply constructed by infiltrating the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-loaded CS pregel into the porous scaffold of the AFS. As the natural molecules and structure of fish skin are well-retained during the synthesis processes, the final patch presented brilliant tensile property, water-absorption property, good biocompatibility and low immunogenicity. In addition, the integrated CS and VEGF endow the patch with antibacterial and angiogenesis capability respectively for promoting tissue growth and wound healing. Thus, in a full-thickness wound rat model, the hybrid patch has been demonstrated with dramatic therapeutic efficacy in inhibiting inflammatory, accelerating angiogenesis, collagen deposition, and tissue generation during the wound repair procedure. These features imply the practical value of this multifunctional aquaculture derived hybrid skin patch in clinical wound management. A novel aquaculture derived hybrid skin patch based on acellular fish skin (AFS) and chitosan (CS) for wound healing was presented. Such functional patch was simply constructed by infiltrating the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-loaded CS pregel into the porous scaffold of the AFS. The resultant patch owns brilliant tensile property, water-absorption property, good biocompatibility, antibacterial and angiogenesis capability. It is demonstrated that patches show effect on accelerating wound healing.