How to avoid the microenvironment limitations in the therapeutic process of pressure ulcers is still challenging. The development of a functional gel can kill bacteria and scavenge reactive oxygen species (ROS), which is urgently required in the therapeutic process of pressure ulcers. Herein, an in situ sprayed gel is developed with silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) and polydopamine (PDA) NPs (APG) to obviate microenvironment restrictions in treating pressure ulcers. The gel is constructed by spraying sodium alginate solution and CaCl2 solution. AgNPs serve as an antibacterial agent in the formed gel, which can effectively cause bacterial inactivation and show more than 5 log (>99.999%) bacterial killing efficiency against methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA), Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), and Escherichia coli (E. coli) in vitro. Meanwhile, PDA NPs serve as the antioxidative agent in the formed gel, which can facilitate the elimination of ROS to address the high ROS problem in wound microenvironment. Based on these features, it is demonstrated through cell and animal experiments that the AgNPs and PDA NPs incorporated gel can realize the effective treatment of MRSA-infected and hydrogen peroxide (H2 O2 )-sensitized pressure ulcers. It is believed that the designed system by a simple spray-coating approach can provide a new therapeutic strategy in biomedical areas.
Keywords: ROS; bacteria; gels; microenvironments; pressure ulcers.
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