Dual-polysaccharide hydrogel empowered by copper nanoparticles with synergistic antibacterial performance for...

Empowering polysaccharide hydrogel with antibacterial function is promising for infected skin defect therapy, but most antibacterial hydrogels endow single bacteria-inactivating mechanism, suffering from a high risk of bacterial drug resistance. In this study, a dual-polysaccharide hydrogel empowered by copper nanoparticles (i.e., SG/SA-Cu NPs hydrogel) with a synergistic antibacterial property was achieved by the coordination interaction between functional groups in sesbania gum (SG) and sodium alginate (SA) with copper ions, followed by the in-situ chemical reduction. Such a dual-polysaccharide-hydrogel-supported strategy achieved a new synergistic antibacterial pathway against 10⁶ CFU·mL^-1Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), (i) enabling the controlled release of copper ions from hydrogel, (ii) generating more reactive oxygen species (ROS) and (iii) endowing excellent photothermal conversion efficiency under 808 nm near-infrared (NIR) irradiation. A full-thickness defect model demonstrated that the SG/SA-Cu NPs hydrogel functioned as an excellent wound dressing, capable of resisting bacterial infection and promoting the wound healing. The proposed strategy provided a new approach for the development of the novel polysaccharide-based hydrogel dressings.