Biomimetic Hydrogel Containing Copper Sulfide Nanoparticles and Deferoxamine for Photothermal Therapy of Infected Diabetic Wounds

Abstract Inducing cell migration from the edges to the center of a wound, promoting angiogenesis, and controlling bacterial infection are very important for diabetic wound healing. Incorporating growth factors and antibiotics into hydrogels for wound dressing is considered a potential strategy to meet these requirements. However, some present drawbacks greatly slow down their development toward application, such as the short half‐life and high price of growth factors, low antibiotic efficiency against drug‐resistant bacteria, insufficient ability of hydrogels to promote cell migration, etc. Deferoxamine (DFO) can upregulate the expression of HIF‐1α, thus stimulating the secretion of angiogenesis‐related endogenous growth factors. Copper sulfide (CuS) nanoparticles possess excellent antibacterial performance combined with photothermal therapy (PTT). Herein, DFO and CuS nanoparticles are incorporated into a biomimetic hydrogel, which mimics the structure and function of the extracellular matrix (ECM), abbreviated as DFO/CuS‐ECMgel. This biomimetic hydrogel is expected to be able to promote cell adhesion and migration, be degraded by cell‐secreted matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), and then release DFO and CuS nanoparticles at the wound site to exert their therapeutic effects. As a result, the three crucial requirements for diabetic wound healing, “beneficial for cell adhesion and migration, promoting angiogenesis, effectively killing drug‐resistant bacteria,” can be achieved simultaneously.