Bioactive skin-mimicking hydrogel band-aids for diabetic wound healing and infectious skin incision treatment

The treatment of diabetic chronic wounds remains a global challenge due to the up-regulated inflammation response, oxidant stress, and persistent infection during healing process. Developing wound dressing materials with ideal biocompatibility, adequate mechanical strength, considerable under-water adhesion, sufficient anti-inflammation, antioxidant, and antibacterial properties is on-demand for clinical applications. In this study, we developed a bioactive skin-mimicking hydrogel band-aid through the combination of tannic acid (TA) and imidazolidinyl urea reinforced polyurethane (PMI) (TAP hydrogel) and explored its potentials in various medical applications, including hemostasis, normal skin incision, full-thickness skin wounds, and bacterial-infection skin incision on diabetic mice. TA was loaded into PMI hydrogel network to enhance the mechanical properties of TAP hydrogels through multiple non-covalent interactions (break strength: 0.28–0.64 MPa; elongation at break: 650–930%), which could resist the local stress and maintain the structural integrity of wound dressings during applications. Moreover, owing to the promising moisture-resistant adhesiveness and organ hemostasis, outstanding anti-inflammation, antibacterial, and antioxidant properties, TAP hydrogels could efficiently promote the recovery of skin incision and defects on diabetic mice. To further simulate the practical situation and explore the potential in clinical application, we also verified the treatment efficiency of TAP hydrogel in S. aureus-infected skin incision model on diabetic mice.
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Highlights • Bioactive skin-mimicking hydrogels were developed through the combination of tannic acid and polyurethane. • The wound healing and infected skin incision closure by the bioactive skin-mimicking hydrogels were studied on diabetic mice.