Bioinspired sodium alginate based thermosensitive hydrogel membranes for accelerated wound healing

Abstract

Despite substantial progress made in the development of wound dressings, wound management remains a great challenge, which compels significant burden to the patient and healthcare system. Owing to its intricate pathophysiology particularly, wounds with bacterial burden impose substantial challenges to the conventional wound dressings, and hence, demands development of novel and more efficient wound healing modalities. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to design a novel thermosensitive hydrogel membrane composed of sodium alginate, poloxamer 407, pluronic F-127, and polyvinyl alcohol for accelerated wound healing. The developed hydrogel membranes were evaluated using ¹HNMR, FTIR, SEM, XRD, TGA and DSC for sufficient cross-linking, surface morphology, tensile strength, mechanical properties, thermos-sensitivity and thermal stability. Moreover, the swelling properties, drug release behavior, gel fraction, water vapor transmission rate, and antibacterial proficiency of the developed hydrogel membrane were also investigated. The resulting analysis revealed that developed hydrogel membranes exhibited good mechanical properties and tensile strength to withstand the external frictional stress while covering the wound, exceptional swelling properties and surface porosity for sustained release of encapsulated drug (amikacin). Antibacterial results showed that amikacin-loaded hydrogel membranes exhibited significantly higher zone of inhibition against S. aureus and P. aregnosa. In accordance with our hypothesis, excisional animal model showed significantly higher wound healing efficacy of hydrogel membranes in terms of faster wound closure, greater re-epithelization, and granulation tissue formation compared with positive and negative control groups. Conclusively, the extensive evaluations clearly evidenced a promising wound healing potential of our novel alginate-based hydrogel membrane as an efficient wound healer for faster wound healing.

Keywords: Biomaterials; Hydrogel membranes; Poloxamer 407; Sodium alginate; Thermosensitive hydrogels; Wound healing.