More natural more better: triple natural anti-oxidant puerarin/ferulic acid/polydopamine incorporated hydrogel for wound healing

Qianmin Ou,Zeyuan Cao,Shaohan Zhang,Le Yu,Jun Wu,Zhipeng Gu,Peikun Xin,Yan Wang,Chuanqiang Fu

doi:10.1186/s12951-021-00973-7

Abstract

BackgroundDuring wound healing, the overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) can break the cellular oxidant/antioxidant balance, which prolongs healing. The wound dressings targeting the mitigation of ROS will be of great advantages for the wound healing. puerarin (PUE) and ferulic acid (FA) are natural compounds derived from herbs that exhibit multiple pharmacological activities, such as antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. Polydopamine (PDA) is made from natural dopamine and shows excellent antioxidant function. Therefore, the combination of natural antioxidants into hydrogel dressing is a promising therapy for wound healing.ResultsHydrogel wound dressings have been developed by incorporating PUE or FA via PDA nanoparticles (NPs) into polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEG-DA) hydrogel.This hydrogel can load natural antioxidant drugs and retain the drug in the gel network for a long period due to the presence of PDA NPs. Under oxidative stress, this hydrogel can improve the activity of superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase and reduce the levels of ROS and malondialdehyde, thus preventing oxidative damage to cells, and then promoting wound healing, tissue regeneration, and collagen accumulation.ConclusionOverall, this triple antioxidant hydrogel accelerates wound healing by alleviating oxidative injury. Our study thus provides a new way about co-delivery of multiple antioxidant natural molecules from herbs via antioxidant nanoparticles for wound healing and skin regeneration.Graphic

Highlights

Wounds are common injuries that can lead to skin breakage or opening, which can cause acute and chronic infections [1, 2]
transmission electron microscope (TEM) results showed that the average of PDA NPs, PDA/ferulic acid (FA) NPs, PDA/PUE NPs, and PDA/PUE/FA NPs were near 150–200 nm (Additional file 1: Fig S2)
The FT-IR spectrum of polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEG-DA) showed that two peaks at 1116 cm-1 and 1718 cm-1 are the ester group absorption peak, which indicated the existence of PEG-DA (Additional file 1: Fig S3)

Summary

Introduction

Wounds are common injuries that can lead to skin breakage or opening, which can cause acute and chronic infections [1, 2]. Reactive oxygen species (ROS), including superoxide radicals and non-radical hydrogen peroxide, are harmful to wound healing because of their detrimental effects on tissues and cells [3]. Biomaterial-based drug delivery systems capable of eliminating these harmful ROS may facilitate therapeutic effects on wound healing. Hydrogels as a biomaterial show the advantages in many ways for their good biodegradability and biocompatibility. In addition to their physiochemistry similar to the native extracellular matrix, which can act as supporting material for drugcontrolled release system. The overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) can break the cellular oxidant/antioxidant balance, which prolongs healing. The combination of natural antioxidants into hydrogel dressing is a promising therapy for wound healing

Methods

Results

Conclusion