Fiber-reinforced hydrogel dressings for enhanced herbal compounds delivery in accelerated diabetic wound healing

In recent years, diabetic wounds have garnered significant attention due to their challenging healing rates. Although numerous related dressings have been designed and developed, their limited therapeutic efficacy often fails to confront the complex pathological microenvironment. Our study constructed a multifunctional dressing by incorporating short fibers (SF) into hydrogels to form a biomimetic cell scaffold, namely MeGel-SF. Noticeably, hydrogels provided a three-dimensional microenvironment for cell adhesion and migration, and loaded SF enhanced the mechanical support of hydrogels while simulating the extracellular matrix meshwork. Moreover, Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge-Radix Puerariae herbal compound (SR), famous traditional Chinese medicine and owing multi-activate characteristics, was loaded into MeGel-SF to demonstrate multi-target therapeutic advantages. The data from material characterisation proved that both MeGel and MeGel-SF SR exhibited excellent mechanical, water-retaining as well as hemostatic performances. In vivo, MeGel-SF SR patches showed a faster wound healing rate compared to control and MeGel groups, achieving a healing area of 89.7 ± 0.25 % at day 18 post-surgery. Furthermore, the MeGel-SF SR dressing patches significantly increased healing speed and improved quality of regenerated tissue in diabetic wounds by promoting hair follicle regeneration, collagen deposition, reducing inflammation, and encouraging vascularization. In all, our study demonstrated that the MeGel-SF SR dressing patches hold significant promise for treating hard-healing diabetic wounds in clinic.