Bioactive Materials

Bioactive Materials

Volume 20, February 2023, Pages 355-367
Bioactive Materials

Gold@Halloysite nanotubes-chitin composite hydrogel with antibacterial and hemostatic activity for wound healing

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bioactmat.2022.05.035Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Highlights

  • Au particles with diameter of 5–10 nm are filled into the lumen of halloysite.

  • Au@HNTs enhanced the mechanical and anti-bacterial properties of chitin.

  • Au@HNTs-chitin hydrogels exhibit photothermal effect with good compatibility.

  • Hydrogel dressing shows hemostasis and promoting wound healing performance.

Abstract

Infection and healing of wounds after injury has always been an unavoidable problem in daily life, so design of a biomaterial with antibacterial and good wound healing properties is highly needed. Herein, a wound healing hydrogel dressing with halloysite clay and chitin as the main components was prepared, which combines the advantages of the biomacromolecule and clay. Halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) are extremely biocompatible clay materials with a hollow tubular structure, and the inner and outer surfaces of HNTs are composed of SiOx and AlOx layers with different charges. Au nanoparticles with diameter in 5–10 nm were filled into the HNTs' lumen to endow photothermal effect of the clay materials. Au@HNTs was then mixed with chitin solution to prepare flexible composite hydrogel by crosslinking by epichlorohydrin. The antibacterial properties, biocompatibility and hemostatic properties of the hydrogel material were investigated by antibacterial experiments, cell experiments, mouse liver and tail hemostatic experiments. After infecting the back wound of mice with Staphylococcus aureus, the hydrogel was applied to the wound to further verify the killing effect on bacteria and wound healing effect of the hydrogel material in vivo. The Au@HNTs-chitin composite hydrogel exhibits high antibacterial and hemostatic activity as well as promoting wound healing function with low cytotoxicity. This study is significant for the development of high-performance wound dressings based on two commonly used biocompatible materials, which shows promising application in wound sterilization and healing.

Keywords

Nanotube
Chitin
Wound healing
Antibacterial
Photothermal hydrogel

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