Hydrogen-Rich Saline Combined With Vacuum Sealing Drainage Promotes Wound Healing by Altering Biotin Metabolism

Impaired wound healing affects the life quality of patients and causes a substantial financial burden. Hydrogen-rich medium is reported to have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. However, the role of hydrogen-rich saline (HRS) in cutaneous wound healing remains largely unexplored, especially by metabolomics. Thus, untargeted metabolomics profiling was analysed to study the effects and mechanism of HRS combined with vacuum sealing drainage (VSD) in a rabbit full-thickness wound model. Our results indicated that the combination treatment of HRS and VSD could accelerate wound healing. In vitro experiments further confirmed its effects on HaCaT keratinocytes. We found that 45 metabolites were significantly changed between the VSD + HRS group and the VSD + saline-treated group. Pathway enrichment analysis indicated that biotin metabolism was the potential target pathway. The biochemical interpretation analysis demonstrated that combining HRS and VSD might enhance mitochondrial function, ATP synthesis, and GSH homeostasis by altering biotin metabolism. The detection of representative indicators of oxidative stress supported the critical metabolic pathway analysis as well. In summary, VSD combined with HRS might provide a new strategy to enhance wound healing.