Novel ray of hope for diabetic wound healing: Hydrogen sulfide and its releasing agents

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a long-term metabolic disease accompanied by difficulties in wound healing placing a severe financial and physical burden on patients. As one of the important signal transduction molecules, both endogenous and exogenous hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) was found to promote diabetic wound healing in recent studies. H₂S at physiological concentrations can not only promote cell migration and adhesion functions, but also resist inflammation, oxidative stress and inappropriate remodeling of the extracellular matrix.

The purpose of this review is to summarize current research on the function of H₂S in diabetic wound healing at all stages, and propose future directions.

In this review, first, the various factors affecting wound healing under diabetic pathological conditions and the in vivo H₂S generation pathway are briefly introduced. Second, how H₂S may improve diabetic wound healing is categorized and described. Finally, we discuss the relevant H₂S donors and new dosage forms, analyze and reveal the characteristics of many typical H₂S donors, which may provide new ideas for the development of H₂S-released agents to improve diabetic wound healing.