Polymers in Wound Repair

Abstract

Efficient dermal wound care implies providing a healing environment at the site of injury. Current repair techniques, including polymeric dressings, are able to accelerate only the healing of epidermal and partial thickness acute wounds based on maintaining the area moist. However, these are not efficient in treatment of full-thickness and chronic wounds, which lack in inborn regenerative elements and are highly prone to infections. For this reason the research interest is nowadays shifted towards functional biomaterials to tackle severe skin deteriorations by providing a beneficiary for healing pro-active and pathogen-free environment. Recent advances in molecular biology and materials science together with better understanding of wound pathophysiology allowed for designing of new wound care approaches that rely on biochemical stimuli to promote wound closure. Biopolymers that couple intrinsic antimicrobial and wound repair properties with hydrophilicity appear as suitable dressing platforms. These can be further upgraded using various bio-entities (therapeutic molecules, cells) with the ability to address specific targets in the biochemical environment of wounds in order to stimulate the healing process. This chapter summarises the abundant experimental and clinical data on polymers in advanced wound dressings, scaffolds for dermal regeneration and platforms for drug delivery.

Multifunctional Enzymatically Generated Hydrogels for Chronic Wound Application

“…45 The GA used in our study is largely explored for its antioxidant activity. 46 Additionally, the antioxidant and radical scavenging capacities of thiols have been also demonstrated. 47 Consequently, the DPPH assay revealed radical scavenging activity of all tested hydrogels as a function of the increasing concentration of GA used for their preparation (Fig.…”

Chitin nanofiber micropatterned flexible substrates for tissue engineering

“…The deacetylation process to form 30% deacetylated chitin starting from 16% deacetylated chitin was easier than increasing the degree of acetylation of highly deacetylated chitosan as previously reported. 20 Highly deacetylated chitosan does not self-assemble into nanofibers from solution because the nanofiber self-assembly process is driven by the intramolecular hydrogen bonding of the acetyl groups in chitin. 39 However, reducing the number of acetyl groups from 84% to 70% in the self-assembled chitin nanofibers did not disrupt the nanofiber morphology (Fig.…”

“…To fabricate robust biodegradable substrates, structural biopolymers such as collagen, chitin, and chitosan are particularly appealing for their biocompatibility and mechanical strength. 20-22 Specifically, chitin and its deacetylated derivative, chitosan, possess multiple advantages as tissue engineering substrates including nontoxicity, cytocompatibility, and tunable biodegradability. 20, 23-28 In addition, the 3-D assembly of nanofibrous structures with chitin and chitosan is known to mimic the natural ECM and promote cell attachment and spreading ability.…”

“…20-22 Specifically, chitin and its deacetylated derivative, chitosan, possess multiple advantages as tissue engineering substrates including nontoxicity, cytocompatibility, and tunable biodegradability. 20, 23-28 In addition, the 3-D assembly of nanofibrous structures with chitin and chitosan is known to mimic the natural ECM and promote cell attachment and spreading ability. 29 While chitin nanofibers already exist in nature, chitosan nanofibers are typically produced by electrospinning.…”

Comfort and Infection Control of Chitosan-impregnated Cotton Gauze as Wound Dressing

“…Nowadays, many sophisticated dressings made of a wide range of polymeric materials are available to the wound care practitioner. Polymers may be used alone or in combinations thereof, being processed in different dressing designs such as films, foams, fibrous materials, beads, hydrogels, hydrocolloids or even pharmaceutical sprays comprising nano/micro-particulate systems [13][14][15]. Although many of these strategies are considered effective in helping wound healing, they have the main drawback of being highly expensive.…”