Bacterial biofilms on wounds can lead to ongoing inflammation and delayed reepithelialization, which brings a heavy burden to the medical systems. Nitric oxide based treatment has attracted attention because it is a promising strategy to eliminate biofilms and heal infected wounds. Herein, a series of tryptophan-based poly­(ester urea)­s with good biodegradation and biocompatibility were developed for the preparation of composite mats by electrospinning. Furthermore, the mats were grafted with a nitric oxide donor (nitrosoglutathione, GSNO) to provide one type of NO loading cargo. The mats were found to have a prolonged NO release profile for 408 h with a maximum release of 1.0 μmol/L, which had a significant effect on killing bacteria and destructing biofilms. The designed mats were demonstrated to promote the growth of cells, regulate inflammatory factors, and significantly improve collagen deposition in the wound, eventually accelerating wound-size reduction. Thus, the studies presented herein provide insights into the production of NO-releasing wound dressings and support the application of full-thickness wound healing.

Considering safe and continuous operation of the subway tunnel, apart from the conventional drainage system, the entrances or exits of tunnels generally are designed to install special devices to block the influx of either floods due to sudden storms or harmful gases caused by terrorist attack. Traditional devices include metal plates or sandbags. In recent years, researchers have invented textile-based capsule-like inflatable device to replace the traditional devices because the new one can be flexibly located in the tunnel, capable of blocking fluids completely, light-weight and low cost. However, the fabrication of capsule-like textile structure has been seldom discussed in the literature. The capsule-like textile structure is either created by fabric weaving followed by sewing for the capsule form, which may result in unevenness of stress distribution due to existence of seams in the structure, or produced by expensive and specially designed weaving equipment. This paper is to explore two different fabrications of capsule-like textile structure for the purpose that the device is evenly structured and can be produced in one step with conventional weaving loom. The techniques of fabrication with trapezoid-formed reed as well as the application of double-layered structure have been investigated. The contour of spherical crown of capsule-like structure is well in line with calculated values.

Due to the lack of sufficient elasticity and strain sensing capability, protein-based ultrafine fibrous tissue engineering scaffolds, though favorable for skin repair, can hardly fulfill on-spot wound monitoring during healing. Herein, we designed highly elastic corn protein ultrafine fibrous smart scaffolds with a three-layer structure for motion tracking at an unpackaged state. The densely cross-linked protein networks were efficiently established by introducing a highly reactive epoxy and provided the fiber substrates with wide-range stretchability (360% stretching range) and ultrahigh elasticity (99.91% recovery rate) at a wet state. With the assistance of the polydopamine bonding layer, a silver conductive sensing layer was built on the protein fibers and endowed the scaffolds with wide strain sensing range (264%), high sensitivity (gauge factor up to 210.55), short response time (<70 ms), reliable cycling stability, and long-lasting duration (up to 30 days). The unpackaged smart scaffolds could not only support cell growth and accelerate wound closure but also track motions on skin and in vivo and trigger alarms once excessive wound deformations occurred. These features not only confirmed the great potential of these smart scaffolds for applications in tissue reconstruction and wound monitoring but also proved the possibility of employing various plant protein ultrafine fibers as flexible bioelectronics.

The healing of chronic wounds, which bring profound problems, can be effectively promoted by skin tissue engineering using scaffolds with features of extracellular matrix (ECM) for supporting native cell growth. Protein ultrafine fibrous scaffolds, although with similar morphology and chemical composition to ECMs, show poor wet stability which leads to substantial deformation, low mechanical properties, and fast degradation. This research provides a two-step dry state treatment including a cross-linking process by ethylene glycol diglycidyl ether (EGDE) and a blocking process by lysine for the modification of zein ultrafine fibrous scaffold model. This distinctive two-step dry state treatment could effectively avoid fiber deformation before fully cross-linking and more importantly the concern of cytotoxicity. The modified zein/EGDE scaffolds displayed remarkable reduced shrinkage of merely 1.25%, enhanced thermal stability, improved mechanical properties around 3−4 fold, retardant degradation to above 60 days, and promoted cytocompatibility about three fold. This work revealed the possibility to develop strong, wet stable, and cytocompatible ultrafine fibers from various proteins for a wide variety of applications in the fields, such as, tissue engineering scaffolds, biosensors, and drug carriers.