Peptide-Enhanced Bioactive Hydrogel Combined with Photodynamic-Phage Synergistic Antibacterial Therapy System Accelerates Infected Wound Healing

Abstract

Bacterial resistance poses a serious clinical challenge. This study designs a peptide-enhanced bioactive hydrogel with a photodynamic-phage synergistic antibacterial effect that is an efficient antibacterial and promotes wound healing. LaFeO₃@C₃N₄ is characterized with XRD, XPS, SEM, and UV-vis, and the photodynamic properties of LaFeO₃@C₃N₄ producing ROS are confirmed by EPR. The peptide QHREDGS-modified boronate ester hydrogel is characterized by FT-IR, ¹HNMR, SEM, dynamic mechanical analysis, etc. Combined LaFeO₃@C₃N₄ and phage phipa10, the peptide QHREDGS-modified boronate ester hydrogel shows synergistic antibacterial and wound healing effects in both in vitro and in vivo experiments. Moreover, the molecular mechanism of tissue regeneration is explored by transcriptomic and protein expression analysis, and the results show that the peptide-enhanced bioactive hydrogel combined with photodynamic-phage synergistic antibacterial therapy system (QBC@DP-P-phi) significantly promoted cell proliferation and migration by regulating key signaling pathways such as PI3K-Akt, VEGF, and MAPK. Overall, this novel hydrogel is promising for the clinical treatment of infected wounds.

Keywords: antibacterial strategy; bioactive hydrogel; infected wounds; phage therapy; photodynamic therapy.