1. Academic Validation
  2. Chiral Hydrogel Accelerates Re-Epithelization in Chronic Wounds via Mechanoregulation

Chiral Hydrogel Accelerates Re-Epithelization in Chronic Wounds via Mechanoregulation

  • Adv Healthc Mater. 2022 Sep 2;e2201032. doi: 10.1002/adhm.202201032.
Hanting Zhu 1 2 Chao Xing 3 Xiaoqiu Dou 3 Yu Zhao 3 Yinbo Peng 1 2 Chuanliang Feng 3 Yong Fang 1 2
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Department of Burns and Plastic Surgery, Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 201900, China.
  • 2 Institute of Traumatic Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 201900, China.
  • 3 State Key Lab of Metal Matrix Composites, Shanghai Key Laboratory for Molecular Engineering of Chiral Drugs, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China.
Abstract

Chronic wounds, such as diabetic foot ulcers (DFU), are a serious clinical problem. It is a challenge for the conventional wound dressings to achieve the desirable therapeutic efficacy due to the lack of biomimetic structural environment for rapid re-epithelization. Inspired by the naturally existing chiral structures in skin, a novel amino acid-based chiral hydrogel dressing is developed, consisting of left-handed or right-handed helical fibers self-assembled by l/d-phenylalanine derivatives. Compared to the levorotatory chiral hydrogel (LH), the dextral chiral hydrogel (DH) shows the ability to enhance cell adhesion, proliferation, and migration, and strongly promotes diabetic wound healing and re-epithelialization with a drug-free mode. Interestingly, the dextral chiral hydrogel is able to actively increase adsorption of type I collagen and promote proliferation and migration of keratinocyte in an Integrin and YAP-mediated manner. This study not only provides a novel strategy for treatment of chronic wounds by utilizing dextral chiral hydrogel dressings, but also unveils the molecular mechanism for effect of dextral chiral structures on the promoted proliferation of keratinocyte.

Keywords

Hippo signal pathway; chiral nanofibers; chronic wounds; keratinocyte; re-epithelization.

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