Antibacterial Porous Microcarriers with a Pathological State Responsive Switch for Wound Healing

In this article, novel antibacterial porous microcarriers with a pathological state responsive switch were developed to promote wound healing. The porous microcarrier includes an inverse opal scaffold generated by a temperature-responsive hydrogel that deforms according to different temperatures and a biodegradable sodium alginate hydrogel used as a vehicle to load drugs. Thus, the microcarrier is endowed with the ability of releasing loaded drugs when the temperature changes in the wound site due to an inflammation reaction. Without inflammation, the microcarriers will be locked and the release of drug molecules will not continue, which prevents the abuse of drugs and further improves the safety of the therapeutic treatment. The designed microcarriers could eliminate inflammation significantly and promote the formation of granulation tissue, angiogenesis, and collagen deposition in the wound site. These features indicate that these microcarriers with a pathological state responsive switch are ideal for promoting wound healing and will have a great potential in biomedical applications.