The silk fibroin nanofibrous membrane loaded with polyhexamethyl biguanide for promoting infected wound healing

Abstract

The design of wound dressings with both antibacterial activity and physicochemical properties to promote infected wound healing is still an urgent need for clinical application. Silk fibroin (SF) exhibited good mechanical properties, anti-ultraviolet, whitening, and moisturizing activities, which had been widely used in the biomedical field. However, SF-based dressings tend to adhere to bacteria and cause additional infections due to lack of antibacterial activity. Therefore, the present study employed electrospinning technology to produce a silk fibroin nanofibrous membrane (SFM) loaded with polyhexamethyl biguanide (PHMB), an effective antibacterial agent, thereby obtaining the PHMB-loaded silk fibroin nanofibrous membrane (SF/PBM). SF/PBM exhibited excellent physicochemical properties, hemostatic activity, antibacterial activity, and biocompatibility. Furthermore, Actin/DAPI staining results revealed that SF/PBM promoted the adhesion and proliferation of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). The healing effect verified that SF/PBM could facilitate the infected wound healing speed via accelerating hemostasis, suppressing bacterial infection, and promoting re-epithelialization and collagen deposition. Taken together, these results demonstrate that this novel antibacterial dressing is promising for clinical use in the treatment of infected wounds.