A Novel Antifungal Plasma-Activated Hydrogel

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Biomedical Engineering
• Polymer Chemistry

Background:

• Antifungal hydrogels are crucial for applications like wound dressings.
• Conventional antifungal hydrogels often rely on incorporated antifungal drugs.
• Developing novel strategies for enhanced antifungal hydrogels is an active research area.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and design an alternative strategy for preparing antifungal hydrogels with high antifungal abilities.
• To investigate the antifungal activity and properties of hydrogels prepared using plasma-activated water.
• To elucidate the potential active components contributing to the antifungal efficacy.

Main Methods:

• Hydrogel polymerization using plasma-activated water (PAW) instead of conventional water.
• Preparation of plasma-activated hydrogels (PAHs).
• Disc diffusion assay, oxidation-reduction potential (ORP) measurement, electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy, and optical emission spectroscopy.

Main Results:

• Plasma-activated hydrogels (PAHs) demonstrated satisfactory antifungal activity.
• PAHs exhibited a significantly lower oxidation-reduction potential (ORP) compared to conventional polyacrylamide (PAAm) hydrogels.
• Hydroxyl radicals were detected in PAHs using ESR spectroscopy, with hydroxyl radical and NO3- speculated as key antifungal components.

Conclusions:

• The proposed plasma-activated hydrogel preparation strategy offers a novel method for creating materials with potent antifungal capabilities.
• PAHs exhibit a longer antifungal lifetime compared to PAW.
• These findings suggest significant potential for plasma-activated hydrogels in various biomedical applications, including wound care.