Predatory bacterial hydrogels for topical treatment of infected wounds

Yan Liu; Bo Zhuang; Bochuan Yuan; Hui Zhang; Jingfei Li; Wanmei Wang; Ruiteng Li; Lina Du; Pingtian Ding; Yiguang Jin

doi:10.1016/j.apsb.2022.05.005

Predatory bacterial hydrogels for topical treatment of infected wounds

Acta Pharm Sin B. 2023 Jan;13(1):315-326. doi: 10.1016/j.apsb.2022.05.005. Epub 2022 May 13.

Authors

Yan Liu^{1

2}, Bo Zhuang³, Bochuan Yuan², Hui Zhang², Jingfei Li², Wanmei Wang², Ruiteng Li², Lina Du², Pingtian Ding¹, Yiguang Jin^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmacy, Shenyang Pharmaceutical University, Shenyang 110016, China.
² Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Beijing Institute of Radiation Medicine, Beijing 100850, China.
³ Department of Chemical Defense, Institute of NBC Defense, Beijing 102205, China.

Abstract

Wound infection is becoming a considerable healthcare crisis due to the abuse of antibiotics and the substantial production of multidrug-resistant bacteria. Seawater immersion wounds usually become a mortal trouble because of the infection of Vibrio vulnificus. Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus, one kind of natural predatory bacteria, is recognized as a promising biological therapy against intractable bacteria. Here, we prepared a B. bacteriovorus-loaded polyvinyl alcohol/alginate hydrogel for the topical treatment of the seawater immersion wounds infected by V. vulnificus. The B. bacteriovorus-loaded hydrogel (BG) owned highly microporous structures with the mean pore size of 90 μm, improving the rapid release of B. bacteriovorus from BG when contacting the aqueous surroundings. BG showed high biosafety with no L929 cell toxicity or hemolysis. More importantly, BG exhibited excellent in vitro anti-V. vulnificus effect. The highly effective infected wound treatment effect of BG was evaluated on mouse models, revealing significant reduction of local V. vulnificus, accelerated wound contraction, and alleviated inflammation. Besides the high bacterial inhibition of BG, BG remarkably reduced inflammatory response, promoted collagen deposition, neovascularization and re-epithelization, contributing to wound healing. BG is a promising topical biological formulation against infected wounds.

Keywords: Bacterial predator; Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus; Hydrogel; Infected wound; Polyvinyl alcohol; Sodium alginate; Vibrio vulnificus; Wound healing.