Skin repairing procedure inspired polypyrrole/bacterial cellulose/platelet rich plasma composite hydrogel as diabetes wound dressing^✩

Abstract

Diabetic ulcers represent a kind of severe chronic wound that presents significant challenges to global healthcare systems. The impaired healing process in diabetic wounds is attributed to persistent inflammation, compromised angiogenesis, and bacterial infections. When dermic injury occurs, the skin will initiate a complex cascade of natural repair procedures to facilitate coordinated progression through inflammatory, proliferative, and remodelling phases. Inspired by these physiological repair processes, a multifunctional hydrogel dressing was designed by combining capacitive polypyrrole (PPy) with bacterial cellulose (BC) hydrogel and platelet-rich plasma (PRP) to achieve synergistic antibacterial efficacy, immunomodulation of the wound microenvironment, and enhanced tissue regeneration. The BC hydrogel serves as a scaffold for PRP encapsulation, protecting growth factors from protease degradation while enabling sustained release. Capacitive PPy not only provides potent antibacterial activity through electric field (EF) mediated charge storage, but also promotes electrical signal transduction to regulate growth factor release kinetics. In vitro results revealed that pre-charged polypyrrole/bacterial cellulose/platelet-rich plasma (PBP) composite hydrogels exhibited superior bactericidal efficacy, enhanced fibroblast and endothelial cell proliferation, and modulation of macrophage polarization. In diabetic wound models, treatment with the electroactivated PBP composite hydrogel demonstrated a marked reduction in inflammatory responses, accelerated vascular regeneration, enhanced collagen deposition, and overall improvement in wound healing.

Keywords

Bacterial cellulose / Diabetic wounds / Antibacterial / Platelet-rich plasma / Electrical stimulation

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