Pharmaceutics (Dec 2021)

Nitric Oxide-Releasing Bacterial Cellulose/Chitosan Crosslinked Hydrogels for the Treatment of Polymicrobial Wound Infections

  • Nurhasni Hasan,
  • Juho Lee,
  • Hye-Jin Ahn,
  • Wook Ryol Hwang,
  • Muhammad Akbar Bahar,
  • Habibie Habibie,
  • Muhammad Nur Amir,
  • Subehan Lallo,
  • Hong-Joo Son,
  • Jin-Wook Yoo

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics14010022
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 14, no. 1
p. 22

Abstract

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Polymicrobial wound infections are a major cause of infectious disease-related morbidity and mortality worldwide. In this study, we prepared a nitric oxide (NO)-releasing oxidized bacterial cellulose/chitosan (BCTO/CHI) crosslinked hydrogel to effectively treat polymicrobial wound infections. Linear polyethyleneimine diazeniumdiolate (PEI/NO) was used as the NO donor. The aldehyde group of BCTO and the amine of CHI were used as crosslinked hydrogel-based materials; their high NO loading capacity and antibacterial activity on the treatment of polymicrobial-infected wounds were investigated. The blank and NO-loaded crosslinked hydrogels, namely BCTO-CHI and BCTO-CHI-PEI/NO, were characterized according to their morphologies, chemical properties, and drug loading. BCTO-CHI-PEI/NO exhibited sustained drug release over four days. The high NO loading of BCTO-CHI-PEI/NO enhanced the bactericidal efficacy against multiple bacteria compared with BCTO-CHI. Furthermore, compared with blank hydrogels, BCTO-CHI-PEI/NO has a favorable rheological property due to the addition of a polymer-based NO donor. Moreover, BCTO-CHI-PEI/NO significantly accelerated wound healing and re-epithelialization in a mouse model of polymicrobial-infected wounds. We also found that both crosslinked hydrogels were nontoxic to healthy mammalian fibroblast cells. Therefore, our data suggest that the BCTO-CHI-PEI/NO developed in this study improves the efficacy of NO in the treatment of polymicrobial wound infections.

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