Smart Polycationic Hydrogel Dressing for Dynamic Wound Healing

It is challenging for traditional wound dressings to adapt to the complex and changeable environment, due to the lack of stable, efficient, and continuous bactericidal activity. They also cannot be satisfied in a multifunctional sensing platform to reconstruct skin sensory functions for human health monitoring. A multifunctional hydrogel dressing is developed here for the treatment of infected wounds and human health monitoring, which is based on alginate and polycation. The in situ polymerization and solvent displacement method are used to functionalize the hydrogel for the improvement of antifreezing, water retention, and environmental adaptability, as well as the adhesion and photothermal property. As a wound dressing, the as-prepared hydrogel exhibits an excellent antibacterial property against both Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus. In a rat model of full-thickness wound infection, it significantly accelerates the healing of infected wounds with a high healing rate of 96.49%. In the further multifunctional sensory tests, the hydrogel shows multiple response modes of strain, pressure and temperature, and sensing stability. An idea is provided here to develop a smart hydrogel dressing that can accelerate wound healing and achieve human health monitoring.