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Electrical signals triggered controllable formation of calcium-alginate film for wound treatment

  • Biomaterials Synthesis and Characterization
  • Original Research
  • Published:
Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Medicine Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Wound dressings play important roles in the management of wounds, and calcium cross-linked alginate (Ca2+-Alg) is a commonly used hydrogel that is adapted for wound treatment. However, conventional methods for fabricating Ca2+-Alg hydrogels can be tedious and difficult to control because of the rapid Ca2+-induced gelation of alginate. In this study, An electrodeposition method was used to rapidly and controllably fabricate Ca2+-Alg films for wound treatment. Several measures of film growth (e.g., thickness and mass) are shown to linearly correlate to the imposed charge transfer at the electrode. Similarly, this charge transfer was also observed to control important physicochemical wound healing properties such as water uptake and retention capacity. Furthermore, a wound healing animal test was performed to evaluate the performance of this electro-fabricated calcium alginate film for wound treatment. This in vivo study demonstrated that wounds dressed with an electro-fabricated Ca2+-Alg film closed faster than that of untreated wounds. Further, the new dermis tissue that formed was composed of reorganized and stratified epithelial layer, with fully developed connective tissue, hair follicle, sebaceous glands as well as aligned collagen. Therefore, our study indicates that this electrofabrication method for the rapid and controlled preparation of alginate film could provide exciting opportunities for wound treatment. More broadly, this study demonstrates the potential of electrochemistry for the fabrication of high performance polymeric materials.

Graphical Abstract

Here we report a rapid and controllable fabrication of free-standing alginate films by coupling anodic electrodeposition with subsequent peeling of deposited materials for wound dressing.

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Acknowledgements

The support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51103043, 51573047), the 111 project (B14018), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (222201717002) and the United States National Science Foundation (CBET-1435957) and Defense Threat Reduction Agency (HDTRA1-13-0037).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Ultrafine Materials of Ministry of Education, The State Key Laboratory of Bioreactor Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200237, China

    Xiaoli Liu, Huan Liu, Xue Qu, Miao Lei, Chuchu Zhang, Hua Hong & Changsheng Liu

  2. Institute for Biosystems and Biotechnology Research and Fischell Department of Bioengineering, 5115 Plant Sciences Building, College Park, MD, 20742, USA

    Gregory F. Payne

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  1. Xiaoli Liu
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  2. Huan Liu
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Correspondence to Xue Qu or Changsheng Liu.

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Liu, X., Liu, H., Qu, X. et al. Electrical signals triggered controllable formation of calcium-alginate film for wound treatment. J Mater Sci: Mater Med 28, 146 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10856-017-5956-x

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