Bacterial cellulose-based dressings with photothermal bactericidal activity and pro-angiogenic ability for infected wound healing

For most traditional wound dressings, it is challenging to simultaneously eliminate bacteria and promote angiogenesis to accelerate the healing process of bacteria-infected wounds. In this work, we develop a multifunctional dressing based on bacterial cellulose (BC) deposited with a tannic acid/Cu2+ ion/Mg2+ ion (TCM) complex film. Overall, the TCM complex exhibits robust interfacial adhesion to modify BC and good photothermal properties to effectively eradicate bacteria in the wound area under near-infrared (NIR) irradiation. The individual components of the TCM complex have several advantageous features for wound healing, such as antibacterial ability and negligible cytotoxicity; in particular, the released Cu2+ and Mg2+ ions are favorable for the proliferation, migration, and tube formation of endothelial cells in vitro. The results of in vivo experiments demonstrated that with the assistance of NIR irradiation, this composite dressing is more effective than traditional gauze or pristine BC dressing in promotion of angiogenesis and collagen deposition without causing remarkable inflammation, thereby accelerating the healing process of bacteria-infected full-thickness skin wounds. This work thus provides a simple and facile way to fabricate multifunctional BC-based dressings that could be potentially used for treating infected wounds.