Preparation of sodium hyaluronate/dopamine/AgNPs hydrogel based on the natural eutetic solvent as an antibaterial wound dressing

Abstract Baesd on previous researches, the natural deep eutectic solvent (DES) has enormous potential to be used in the fabrication of hydrogel wound dressing due to its outstanding properties including cytocompatibility, degradability and solubility. In order to further improve the antibaterial capacity of hydrogel, in the present study sodium hyaluronate (SH) and the natural DES were utilized to develop a novel hydrogel wound dressing by dopamine (DA) coated SH with in situ reduction of silver nanoparticles (DES-DASH@Ag). Furthermore, during the preparation process, we discovered for the first time that the DES can be used to fill the freeze-dried DASH to prepare a hydrogel (DES-DASH), which was promising to utilized in the fabrication of other hydrogels. Besides, the chemical and physical properties as well as wound healing capacity of the DES-DASH@Ag hydrogel were characterized. As a result, the DES-DASH@Ag hydrogel presented good cytocompatibility tested using NIH-3 T3 fibroblast cells, and prominent antibacterial effect against two types of bacteria infecting exposed wound. Furthermore, the hydrogel facilitated regeneration of mouse skin tissue in the wound area. The overall performance of DES-DASH@Ag hydrogel suggested that it could be a promising wound dressing in modern medicine.