Bioactive Anti-inflammatory Antibacterial Plasma-activated Hydrogel for Infected Wound Healing

Recently, cold atmospheric plasma has been widely used in biomedicine. Direct plasma treatment has demonstrated its potential in wound healing; however, there are problems that limit its clinical application, including limited treatment area and risk of thermal injury. In view of this, plasma-activated hydrogel (PAH) was proposed for infected wound treatment in this study as an alternative to direct plasma treatment. The advantage of PAH is the good storage and slow-release performance of reactive species, which enables continuous and effective treatment of wound. PAH was prepared by activating 5% sodium alginate hydrogel using surface air discharge plasma. For in vitro sterilization, PAH-20 min could achieve more than 6 orders of magnitude of sterilizing effect on Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), and maintains more than 99% sterilizing effect after 2 days of storage at 4°C. The cell scratch assay showed that PAH can effectively promote cell migration and thus wound healing. In vivo experiments showed that PAH treatment of S. aureus infected wounds significantly reduced bacterial load and PAH-20 min increased wound area contraction by 40 %. And the immunohistochemical and blood biochemical analysis show that PAH treatment promoted wound healing by inhibiting tissue inflammatory response and inducing growth factor production, without showing any toxicity. In conclusion, PAH holds promise as a safe and effective clinical therapy to wound healing.