Introduction
Infections are a significant concern in wound healing in hospitals and in everyday life. Most wound dressings available today are passive solutions for infections because they protect the wound and do not treat the infection on-site, relying on local/systemic antibiotic administration. Also, monitoring infections throughout therapy is difficult, as it requires changing the dressing regularly for visual wound assessment, which affects tissue regeneration. This research aims to develop an innovative wound dressing with antibacterial properties and optical biosensor performance for treating and monitoring infected wounds.
Methods
Electrospun nanofibers (NFs) were loaded with a pH indicator, allowing for the real-time visualization of the infection presence through pH variations at the wound and improving the mechanical strength. Moreover, polymeric nanoparticles (NPs) loaded with an antibiotic were prepared by emulsion evaporation for long-term and controlled local release to treat bacterial infection. The NFs and NPs were incorporated into a hydrogel composite.
Results
The NFs presented a similar size and shape, and the NPs were monodispersed, with a spherical morphology. The pH-responsive color change of the composite hydrogel was simulated in vitro, turning instantaneously blue for basic pH (mimicking an infected wound) and yellow for slightly acidic pH (healthy skin). The antibiotic release allowed significant bacterial biofilm inhibition. For the optimized NPs dose, the composite exhibited adequate mechanical properties and no cytotoxicity. Overall, the results highlighted that the nanomaterials composite presented the best compromise concerning physicochemical, morphological, mechanical, and biological properties.
Conclusions
Smart nanomaterials simultaneously allowed for pH monitoring with the antibiotic release, endowing an antibacterial activity. Thus, this research is crucial to ease the monitoring/infection elimination of the wound with a reduced number of dressing replacements. This work adds a new study for designing smart multifunctional nanomaterials, combining several syntheses to fight infections and providing real-time information through an optical biosensor.
