Wound Healing Improvement by Polymer Surgical Suture Coated with Tannic Acid

Abstract

A surgical suture is a vital medical device to uphold wounded tissue during surgery. However, the application to improve tissue healing must still be developed. This study offered to solve this problem by incorporating tannic acid (TA) into polydioxanone (PDS) sutures. The PDS suture was immersed in TA complexing with iron (III) solutions in pH 8.0 solution. The engineered suture was successful, as revealed by the OH peak of TA in FTIR spectra. Furthermore, it was confirmed by TA particle appearance under Scanning Electron Microscopy. Contact angle measurement showed better wettability in biological mimicking solutions, such as water, serum, and saline solution. Thereby, it improved in vitro wound healing activity. Moreover, our bioinformatics data showed that TA enhanced the wound healing process by addressing multiple targets in the early phase of inflammation. For instance, it induced platelets to reduce bleeding at the early wound healing stage, activated T cells at the inflammation stage, accelerated epidermis cell proliferation, and activated fibroblast as a key player in wound healing. Due to multiple wound healing targets, our suture system was expected to be emphasized in clinical applications. HIGHLIGHTS The engineered surgical suture was fabricated by modifying the surface of surgical suture with tannic acid (TA) through iron (III) complex formation in basic condition The modified PDS suture had a high wettability degree of water, saline, and serum, representing the biological fluid, which was expected to have better biocompatibility Based on bioinformatics analysis, TA revealed multiple targets to stop bleeding by activating platelet through FYN, CD4, and CD8 T cells, induced epithelial cells proliferation through Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR), and activated many transcription and migration factors of fibroblast GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT