Metal-phenolic network-based polydopamine@Cu within a polyvinyl alcohol hydrogel film for improved infected wound healing through antibacterial and pro-angiogenesis activity

An ideal wound dressing should not only have flexibility, adequate mechanical strength and adhesion ability but also possess antibacterial ability and biofunction. Herein, we prepared polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-based hydrogel membranes with copper ion-loaded polydopamine (PDA@Cu) to simultaneously achieve antibacterial and pro-angiogenesis functions in a wound dressing. We prepared three porous PVA/PDA@Cu hydrogels with different concentrations of copper ion, namely PVA/PDA@Cu-1, PVA/ PDA@Cu-2 and PVA/PDA@Cu-3. Although the incorporation of PDA@Cu slightly decreased the compres-sive mechanical strength, the tensile property of the PVA/PDA@Cu significantly increased, thereby enhancing the flexibility of the PVA hydrogel film. The hydrogel membranes had good biocompatibility, except PVA/PDA@Cu-3, which had toxic effects because of a high Cu concentration. The antibacterial effect of the membrane increased with the increasing Cu concentration. Owing to the photothermal prop-erty of PDA, the PVA/PDA@Cu hydrogel membranes show synergistic antibacterial ability. Furthermore, the PVA/PDA@Cu-1 and PVA/PDA@Cu-2 hydrogel membranes had pro-angiogenesis property. Results of in vivo experiments showed that PVA/PDA@Cu-2 achieved satisfactory repair outcomes for the bacte-rial infected wound with abundant collagen deposition and formation of neo-vessels. These results sug-gest that the PVA/PDA@Cu hydrogel membrane serves as a better platform for regeneration of the infected skin and thus will have a clinical application in the future.(c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).