Alginate foam gel modified by graphene oxide for wound dressing

Abstract

Recently, hydrogel dressings have been rapidly developed for wound healing. However, it is still a huge challenge to endow hydrogel wound dressings with excellent hemostatic performance. Here, a new wound treatment material, foam gel wound dressing, is reported, which possesses rapid hemostasis and antibacterial properties. The foam gel dressing is composed of chitooligosaccharide modified graphene oxide (CG) nanocomposites and calcium alginate foam substrate. In this system, CG has a strong interaction with platelets, which is helpful for rapid hemostasis. So the wound dressing could stop bleeding quickly within 10 s. Meanwhile, CG also provides excellent antibacterial properties to dressings, which is conducive to wound healing. Full-thickness wound healing experiments showed that compared with blank control and CG-free foam gel dressings, CG-loaded foam gel dressings shows better healing properties, and the wounds covered with them are almost completely healed within 12 days. In addition, histological morphology analysis displays CG-loaded wound dressing could significantly accelerate wound healing by reducing the inflammatory response and promoting vascular remodeling. This unique strategy provides a simple and practical method for the clinical application of the next generation of wound dressings.

Keywords: Alginate; Graphene oxide; Hemostasis; Wound dressing; Wound healing.