Abstract
Biocompatible materials that act as scaffolds for regenerative medicine are of enormous interest. Hydrogel-nanoparticle composites have great potential in this regard, however evaluations of their wound healing and safety in vivo in animal studies are scarce. Here we demonstrate that a guar gum/curcumin-stabilized silver nanoparticle hydrogel composite is an injectable material with exceptional wound healing and antibacterial properties. We show that the curcumin-bound silver nanoparticles themselves exhibit low cytotoxicity and enhance proliferation, migration, and collagen production in in vitro studies of human dermal fibroblasts. We then show that the hydrogel-nanoparticle composite promotes wound healing in in vivo studies on rats, accelerating wound closure by > 40% and reducing bacterial counts by 60% compared to commercial antibacterial gels. Histopathology indicates that the hydrogel composite enhances transition from the inflammation to proliferation stage of healing, promoting the formation of fibroblasts and new blood vessels, while target gene expression studies confirm that the accelerated tissue remodeling occurs along the normal pathways. As such these hydrogel composites show great promise as wound dressing materials with high antibacterial capacity.
Highlights
Functional bio(nano)materials research, including towards new drug delivery systems and enhanced scaffolds for regenerative medicine, is a fast-developing field of the life s ciences[1,2]
Injectable hydrogel nanoparticle composite prepared using guar gum (GG) and composited with silver nanoparticles stabilized by curcumin (GG/ Cur-AgNPs)[7]
NP diameters are normally found to be larger by dynamic light scattering (DLS) than by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) as the former measures the ligand/water layer around the particle, though particle aggregation in solution may account for the difference
Summary
Functional bio(nano)materials research, including towards new drug delivery systems and enhanced scaffolds for regenerative medicine, is a fast-developing field of the life s ciences[1,2]. The GG/Cur-AgNPs hydrogels enhance wound healing and antibacterial efficiency by > 40% and 60% respectively compared to commercial antibacterial gels for wound treatment. Human dermal fibroblast cells exposed to Cur-AgNPs increased proliferation and collagen production compared to untreated controls.
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