Hyaluronic Acid-Gentamicin Hydrogel and pH Indicator Mediated by Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles as Antibacterial and Indicatable Wound Dressings for Real-Time Monitoring of the Healing Process

Real-time monitoring of the wound healing process is of significant importance for clinical wound care. Herein, indicatable wound dressings are facilely designed by using mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSN) as the mediator, which acts as a "bridge" between the bromothymol blue (BTB) pH indicator and the hyaluronic acid-gentamicin (HA-Gen) hydrogel. Gen antibiotic can be released from the hydrogel wound dressings through the self-degradation of the hydrogel, and thus, the HA-Gen-MSN-BTB wound dressings exhibit high antibacterial activity. More importantly, the color of the hydrogel is gradually changed from light yellow to green and finally to bright yellow during the process of wound healing, and thus real-time monitoring of wound healing can be conveniently achieved with the naked eye from the change in color without frequent sampling and time-consuming analysis.