Magnetic biohybrid microspheres for protein purification and chronic wound healing in diabetic mice

Chronic wounds represent a major clinical problem with high morbidity and mortality. A variety of biomaterials and bioactive compounds have been proven to be effective on wound healing. Here, novel multifunctional biohybrid microspheres are presented, and one-step protein separation and applications in chronic wound healing was realized for the first time. The magnetic biohybrid microspheres composed of agarose and hyaluronic acid are simply produced by the microfluidic electrospray. With glutathione, microspheres are capable to capture and isolate the growth factor-bFGF, which is produced using E. coli expression system. Moreover, hyaluronic acid and glutathione as natural anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative agents, are observed to reduce oxidative stress and inflammatory responses. Conjugated with active bFGF, these biohybrid microspheres could significantly promote angiogenesis in chronic wounds as evidenced by in vivo studies using diabetic mice. Thus, this flexible, biohybrid and multifunctional microsphere system may be widely used in the design of various bioactive proteins and relevant biomedical applications.