Transparent silk fibroin film-facilitated infected-wound healing through antibacterial, improved fibroblast adhesion and immune modulation

Abstract

The clinical application of regenerated silk fibroin (RSF) films for wound treatment is restricted by its undesirable mechanical properties and lack of antibacterial activity. Herein, different pluronic polymers were introduced to optimize their mechanical properties and the RSF film with 2.5% pluronic F127 (RSF_PF127) stood out to address the above issues owing to its satisfactory mechanical properties, hydrophilicity, and transmittance. Diverse antibacterial agents (curcumin, Ag nanoparticles, and antimicrobial peptide KR-12) were separately encapsulated in RSF_PF127 to endow it with antibacterial activity. <i>In vitro</i> experiments revealed that the medicated RSF_PF127 could persistently release drugs and had desirable bioactivities toward killing bacteria, promoting fibroblast adhesion, and modulating macrophage polarization. <i>In vivo</i> experiments revealed that medicated RSF_PF127 not only eradicated methicillin-resistant <i>Staphylococcus aureus</i> in the wound area and inhibited inflammatory responses, but also facilitated angiogenesis and re-epithelialization, regardless of the types of antibacterial agents, thus accelerating the recovery of infected wounds. These results demonstrate that RSF_PF127 is an ideal matrix platform to load different types of drugs for application as wound dressings.