A rapid-triggered approach towards antibacterial hydrogel wound dressing with synergic photothermal and sterilization profiles

Developing non-antibiotic-dependent antibacterial hydrogels for repairing infected skin defect remains largely unexplored. Herein, a synergic photothermal and synergic antibacterial hydrogel was designed via one-pot approach to cope with full-thickness skin wound infection. In this work, the mixture of silver‑sodium lignin sulfonate nanoparticles (Ag-SLS NPs) and polypyrrole-polydopamine nanoparticles (PPy-PDA NPs) for the first time as synergic photothermal agent was introduced into poly (ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) to form Ag-SLS/PPy-PDA@PEGDA hydrogel. Thanks to the near-infrared light into heat conversion capacity of both Ag and PPy-PDA NPs, the formed hydrogel shows ultrahigh photothermal activity, and outstanding antibacterial activity to both Gram-negative (E. coli) and Gram-positive (S. aureus) bacteria in vitro. Additionally, in vivo assay indicates that the hydrogel has outstanding long-term antibacterial effect due to the photothermal sterilization along with Ag ions release. Overall, the dual-synergic photothermal and antibacterial effects of the Ag-SLS/PPy-PDA@PEGDA hydrogel could highly accelerate infection wound healing, and thus has great potential to be used for tissue engineering.