Oxygen carriers are attracting extensive interest in biomedical research and clinical applications such as wound healing, alternative blood transfusion, and acute trauma treatment. Great efforts have been devoted to the generation of oxygen carriers with special functions and properties to meet specific demands. Here, we present black phosphorus (BP)-loaded separable responsive microneedles (MNs) with oxygen carrying and controllable oxygen delivering ability for wound healing. Such MNs are composed of a polyvinyl acetate (PVA) backing layer and gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA) tips that are loaded with BP quantum dots (BP QDs) and hemoglobin (Hb). Taking advantage of the fast dissolvability of PVA, the backing layer soon disappears after the MNs are applied to skin and the noncytotoxic, biocompatible GelMA tips are left inside the skin. Due to the excellent photothermal effect of BP QDs and the reversible oxygen binding property of Hb, the local temperature of the skin will increase after near-infrared ray irradiation, resulting in the responsive oxygen release. Notably, the practical performance of such MNs has been demonstrated by treating the full-thickness cutaneous wounds of a type I diabetes rat model, indicating their potential value in wound healing and other related biomedical fields.
Keywords: black phosphorus; microneedle; oxygen carrier; responsive delivery; wound healing.