One nanosystem with potent antibacterial and gene-delivery performances accelerates infected wound healing

Growth factor delivery has attracted high attention for the treatment of severe skin wounds, while it is still desirable to develop new delivery systems with superiority for both antibacterial and delivery performances. In this work, one bifunctional nanosystem (HPT-RP) was constructed for the anti-bacterial and gene-delivery (plasmid encoding epidermal growth factor (EGF)) treatment of infected wound through the one-pot dual conjugation of photosensitizer and bacterium/cell-affinity phenylboronic acid onto hyperbranched polyaminoglycosides. HPT-RP realized high anti-bacterial ability owing to the receptor-mediated photodynamic therapy. The nanoparticle morphology and phenylboronic acid conjugation endowed HPT-RP with high gene transfection. In a rat infected-skin-defect model, HPT-RP exhibited the remarkable performance of anti-infective/EGF-delivery and accelerated healing. More importantly, a new sight into rat-EGF production revealed the underlying mechanism of extraneous EGF delivery and endogenous EGF production. This work sheds light on the rational design of growth factor delivery systems for infected wound therapy.