As the most frequent wound complication, infection has become a major clinical challenge in wound management. To overcome the “Black Box” status of the wound‐healing process, next‐generation wound dressings with the abilities of real‐time monitoring, diagnosis during early stages, and on‐demand therapy has attracted considerable attention. Here, by combining the emerging development of bioelectronics, a smart flexible electronics‐integrated wound dressing with a double‐layer structure, the upper layer of which is polydimethylsiloxane‐encapsulated flexible electronics integrated with a temperature sensor and ultraviolet (UV) light‐emitting diodes, and the lower layer of which is a UV‐responsive antibacterial hydrogel, is designed. This dressing is expected to provide early infection diagnosis via real‐time wound‐temperature monitoring by the integrated sensor and on‐demand infection treatment by the release of antibiotics from the hydrogel by in situ UV irradiation. The integrated system possesses good flexibility, excellent compatibility, and high monitoring sensitivity and durability. Animal experiment results demonstrate that the integrated system is capable of monitoring wound status in real time, detecting bacterial infection and providing effective treatment on the basis of need. This proof‐of‐concept research holds great promise in developing new strategies to significantly improve wound management and other pathological diagnoses and treatments.
Flexible wearable devices have achieved
remarkable applications
in health monitoring because of the advantages of multisignal collecting
and real-time wireless transmission of information. However, the integration
of bulky sensing elements and rigid metal circuit components in traditional
wearable devices may lead to a mechanical and signal-conducting mismatch
between wearable devices and biological tissues, thus restricting
their wide applications in the human body. The excellent mechanical
properties, conductivity, and high tissue resemblance of conductive
hydrogel contribute to its application in flexible electronic sensors
to monitor human health. In this work, a dual-network, temperature-responsive
ionic conductive hydrogel with excellent stretchability, fast temperature
responsiveness, and good conductivity was developed by introducing
a polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)/ tannic acid (TA)/ Fe3+ cross-linked
network into the N,N-methylene diacrylamide
(MBAA) cross-linked poly(N-isopropylacrylamide-co-acrylamide) (P(NIPAAm-co-AM)) network.
Furthermore, the introduction of the PVP/TA/Fe3+ cross-linked
network endowed the hydrogel with excellent stretchability and conductivity.
By adjusting the molar ratio of TA and Fe3+ to 3:5, a hydrogel
with a maximal stretching ratio of 720% and sensitive strain response
(GF = 3.61) was achieved, showing a promising application in wearable
strain sensors to monitor both large and fine human motions. Moreover,
by introducing PNIPAAm with a lower critical solution temperature
(LCST), the hydrogel may be used to monitor the environmental temperature
through the temperature–conductivity responsiveness, which
can be applied as a wearable temperature sensor to detect fever or
tissue hyperthermia in the human body.
Hydrogel-based wound dressings can monitor infection via pH-responsive FRET changes and provide on-demand antibacterial treatment via NIR-triggered antibiotic release.
Enzymatic cascade reactions in confined
microenvironments play important roles in cellular chemical transformation.
They also have important biotechnological and therapeutic applications.
Here, enzymatic cascade microreactors (MRs) coupling glucose oxidase
(GOx) and hemoglobin (Hb) (GOx-Hb MRs) were successfully fabricated
by co-precipitation of GOx and Hb into a MnCO3 template,
followed by the assembly of a multilayer film on a template surface,
slight cross-linking, and final removal of MnCO3. In the
presence of glucose with blood-relevant concentration, the GOx-Hb
MRs exhibited a higher cascade reaction activity under mild acidic
conditions than that under neutral conditions at physiological temperature.
The GOx-Hb MRs effectively consumed glucose to generate HO· at pH = 5, which significantly inhibited bacterial growth and biofilm
formation. This kind of enzymatic cascade microreactors might be useful
for applications in biomedical fields.
A wound dressing with UV-responsive antibacterial property was prepared by loading a photo-cleavable polyprodrug (LHP) into poly(vinyl alcohol)/sodium alginate (PVA/SA) wound dressing to overcome the overuse of antibiotics.
A substrate with selective capture of MSCs (BMSCs) over fibroblasts (NIH3T3 cells) and immune cells (RAW264.7 cells) was developed by conjugating E7 peptides on collagen substrates.
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