Preparation and evaluation of a novel alginate-arginine-zinc ion hydrogel film for skin wound healing

In this paper, the mixed solution of sodium alginate (SA) and arginine (Arg) was dried into a film and then crosslinked with zinc ion to form sodium alginate-arginine-zinc ion (SA-Arg-Zn2+) hydrogel for skin wound dressings. SA-Arg-Zn2+ hydrogel had higher swelling ability, which was beneficial to absorbing wound exudate. Moreover, it exhibited antioxidant activity and strong inhibition against E. coli and S. aureus, and had no obvious cytotoxicity to NIH 3T3 fibroblasts. Compared with other dressings utilized in rat skin wound, SA-Arg-Zn2+ hydrogel showed better wound healing efficacy and the wound closure ratio reached to 100 % on the 14th day. The result of Elisa test indicated that SA-Arg-Zn2+ hydrogel down-regulated the expression of inflammatory factors (TNF-α and IL-6) and promoted the growth factor levels (VEGF and TGF-β1). Furthermore, H&E staining results confirmed that SA-Arg-Zn2+ hydrogel could reduce wound inflammation and accelerate re-epithelialization, angiogenesis and wound healing. Therefore, SA-Arg-Zn2+ hydrogel is an effective and innovative wound dressing, moreover, the preparation technique is simple and feasible for industrial application.