Gelatin and alginate hydrogels as bio-interactive dressings

Abstract

To improve the wound healing, wound dressing can be developed from traditional passive materials that simply covered and concealed the wound to the active dressing that focused on moisture management and active ingredients delivery in the local wound environment. In this work, three types of active wound dressing are developed from gelatin and alginate hydrogels. They are nanofibrous gelatin mats containing an herbal Centella asiatica extract prepared by electrospining technique, asiaticoside-loaded alginate films obtained by solvent casting process and gelatin hydrogel containing silver nanoparticles achieved by gamma irradiation synthesis. As-loaded Centella asiatica extract and asiaticoside are commonly known for wound healing activity, increasing collagen synthesis and reducing in keliod production, while as-loaded silver nanoparticles are an effective broad-spectrum antibacterial agent. Consequently these as-prepared wound dressings were expected to possess wound healing property or antibacterial activity satisfactory to use as bio-interactive dressing that can facilitate the healing process. Physical properties such as gel fraction, moisture retention, swelling and weight loss behaviour, mechanical properties of wound dressings and the release characteristic of the active substances from theses wound dressing in buffer solutions were evaluated. The potential use of these wound dressings was further assessed in terms of the indirect cytotoxicity with normal human dermal fibroblast (NHDF) cells and the antibacterial activity evaluation.