Photopolymerized keratin-PGLa hydrogels for antibiotic resistance reversal and enhancement of infectious wound healing

Changfa Sun; Wenjie Liu; Lili Wang; Run Meng; Jia Deng; Rui Qing; Bochu Wang; Shilei Hao

doi:10.1016/j.mtbio.2023.100807

Photopolymerized keratin-PGLa hydrogels for antibiotic resistance reversal and enhancement of infectious wound healing

Mater Today Bio. 2023 Sep 23:23:100807. doi: 10.1016/j.mtbio.2023.100807. eCollection 2023 Dec.

Authors

Changfa Sun¹, Wenjie Liu¹, Lili Wang¹, Run Meng¹, Jia Deng², Rui Qing³, Bochu Wang¹, Shilei Hao¹

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Biorheological Science and Technology, Ministry of Education, College of Bioengineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400030, China.
² College of Environment and Resources, Chongqing Technology and Business University, Chongqing, 400067, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Microbial Metabolism, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China.

Abstract

Infectious wounds have become serious challenges for both treatment and management in clinical practice, so development of new antibiotics has been considered an increasingly difficult task. Here, we report the design and synthesis of keratin 31 (K31)-peptide glycine-leucine-amide (PGLa) photopolymerized hydrogels to rescue the antibiotic activity of antibiotics for infectious wound healing promotion. K31-PGLa displayed an outstanding synergistic effect with commercial antibiotics against drug-resistant bacteria by down-regulating the synthesis genes of efflux pump. Furthermore, the photopolymerized K31-PGLa/PEGDA hydrogels effectively suppressed drug-resistant bacteria growth and enhanced skin wound closure in murine. This study provided a promising alternative strategy for infectious wound treatment.

Keywords: Antibiotic resistance reversal; Infectious wound healing; Keratin; Photopolymerizable hydrogels.