Herbal-based hydrogel fabricated by self-assembly of mangiferin loading with rhein-functionalized silver nanoparticles for treating infected diabetic wound

Diabetic wound is implicated with cellular dysfunction, chronic inflammation, and insufficient angiogenesis inducing the prolonged wound healing that has imposed critical threats to patients' quality of health and life, and significantly increased unaffordable healthcare costs. Thus, the invention of novel hydrogel dressing with versatility via facile and sustainable strategy is of significant importance for healing refractory diabetic wound. In this study, a composite hydrogel was devised by the self-assembly of mangiferin (MF) along with the encapsulation of rhein-functionalized silver nanoparticles (Rh@Ag), which was directly synthesized by rhein (Rh). In this system, Rh@Ag exerts robust bactericidal activity that mainly derives from the synergistic effect of silver nanoparticles and Rh, while MF endows the composite hydrogel satisfactory recruitment ability of healing-related cells and antioxidation activity. It is these properties that impart the composite hydrogel high performance healing in infected diabetic wound via hemostasis, eliminating bacteria, mitigating inflammatory response, and accelerating re-epithelization, collagen deposition and angiogenesis, where PI3K-Akt signaling pathway, cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, ECM-receptor interaction are regulated. Overall, the biocompatible hydrogel possesses powerful bactericidal and repair-promotion ability, that exert huge potential for it to clinically treat infected diabetic wound.