Novel supramolecular self-healing silk fibroin-based hydrogel via host-guest interaction as wound dressing to enhance wound healing

Silk fibroin (SF) based hydrogels possess great potential in wound healing. However, they have limitations as wound dressings, such as long-gelation time, high temperature or organic solvent-assisted treatment, and lack of self-healing property. In this study, a supramolecular hydrogel based on SF, acryloyl-beta-cyclodextrin (Ac-CD) and 2-hydroxyethyl acrylate was developed through a facile method by photo-polymerization of acrylate under UV irradiation, and showed enhanced performance as wound dressing than commercial dressing. This SF based hydrogel was confirmed to be dually crosslinked by host-guest interaction and hydrophobic beta-sheet conformation, and demonstrated improved mechanical properties, long-term stability, rapid self-healing behavior, injectability, and good biocompatibility, benefiting its application as wound dressing. Moreover, as a drug carrier owing abundant CDs, the hydrophobic drug curcumin with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity was loaded in SF-based hydrogel, accompanying with a controlled and sustained release profile, therewith boosting better wound healing performance with generating higher granulation tissue thickness, collagen disposition, upregulating vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and decreasing inflammatory response in a full-thickness skin defect model. In conclusion, this novel self-healing SF-based hydrogel is of great value in wound healing and enriches the fabrication methodology of SF-based self-healing biomaterials as well.

Automated summary

A novel self-healing SF-based hydrogel was developed through dual crosslinking for enhanced wound dressing performance and as a drug carrier with controlled release, showing great potential in wound healing.