Superhydrophobic hierarchical fiber/bead composite membranes for efficient burns treatment
发布时间:2019-06-17   浏览次数:206

Burns constitute one of the worst forms of trauma and remain a global public health issue. Medical treatment of full-thickness skin burns remains a major clinical challenge. To address an urgent need in complex clinical requirements on developing a new generation of wound dressings with integrated functionalities. This study reports research work on a hierarchical fiber/bead composite membranes design, which combines a lotus-leaf-like superhydrophobic surface with drugs preloaded in the core/shell fibers for effective burn treatment (Figure 1). 

Figure 1. Illustration of preparation process of core/shell fibers via coaxial electrospinning and the membranes modified using beads via electrospraying (left) and the application effectiveness of the hierarchical fiber/bead composite membranes (right).

We demonstrate the design and fabrication of an advanced composite membrane, comprised of electrospun polylactide:poly(vinyl pyrrolidone)/polylactide: poly(ethylene glycol)  (PLA:PVP/PLA:PEG) core/shell fibers loaded with two different compartmentalized functional drugs, as a functionally integrated wound dressing for efficient burns treatment. The drugs have been selected to be released at appropriate times during the different stages of burn healing process. Furthermore, the introduction of PLA beads via electrospraying on one side of the membrane resulted in biomimetic micro-nanostructures, inspired by those of lotus leaves found in nature (Figure 2A). This designer structure equipped the composite membranes with superhydrophobic property to inhibit the adhesion/spreading of exogenous bacteria and other microbes. The administration of the resulting composite fibrous membrane on burnt skin in an infected rat model led to faster healing than a conventional product (sterile silicone membrane) and control detailed herein (Figure 2B). The combined antibacterial activity and profound wound healing effects make our drug-loaded hierarchical micro-nanostructured composite fibrous membranes an advanced system for developing effective burn treatments of the future. 

 

Figure 2. (A) SEM images of surfaces and PLA beads number for the different membrane samples. (B) Appearances of the size change of the large excision wounds (in rat dorsum) made in full-thickness skin with different time periods and the quantification analysis of wound area was conducted to show the healing efficiency between each group.  

SSM: sterile silicone membrane, as a control.

FM: (PLA:PVP)/(PLA:PEG) core/shell fibrous membrane.

CFM: composite fibrous membrane, PLA beads by electrospraying on one top side of the FM resulted in biomimetic superhydrophobicity and anti-bioadhesive properties.

DLCFM: the drugs were loaded in CFM.

This demonstrates a balance between simplified preparation processes and increased multifunctionality of the wound dressings. The creation of hierarchically structured surfaces can be readily achieved by electrospinning, and the composite dressings possessed a considerable mechanical strength, effective wound exudate absorption and permeability, good biocompatibility, broad antibacterial ability and promoting wound healing etc. Thus, this work unveils a promising strategy for the development of functionally integrated wound dressings for burn wound care.

Authors from AISMST are: Dr. Weichang Li and Dr. Qianqian Yu are contributed equally as co-first authors, Prof. Kan Yue is a coauthor and Prof. Linge Wang is one of the corresponding authors. 

For more details, please visit the website. 

This article is available online 13 May 2019 in Acta Biomaterialia website. 

Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1742706119303423?via%3Dihub 

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actbio.2019.05.025

Relative articles:

1. Wang, L. G., et al., Self-Assembly-Driven Electrospinning: The Transition from Fibers to Intact Beaded Morphologies, Macromol Rapid Comm, 2015, 36, 1437-1443.

https://doi.org/10.1002/marc.201500149 

2. Wu, J., et al., Rinse-resistant superhydrophobic block copolymer fabrics by electrospinning, electrospraying and thermally-induced self-assembly, Appl Surf Sci, 2017, 422, 769-777.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsusc.2017.06.076 


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