Transpirational charcoal nanoparticles in a trilayered nanofibrous dressing containing marine collagen and loaded with phenytoin and tannic acid for burn healing

With growing interest in continuous health monitoring, the development of multifunction wound dressing, with smart exudate pumping system loaded with multiple drugs becoming increasingly important. Herein, we present the fabrication of tri-layered nanofibrous membrane. The top layer is polyurethane (PU) nanofibers that have been loaded with charcoal (CH) nanoparticles, to exhibit photothermal induced transpiration when exposed to incandescent lamp light. The skin contact layer is an electrospun of polycaprolactone (PCL)/marine collagen (COL) blend loaded with tannic acid (TA) to shrink blood vessels and stop bleeding. The intermediate layer was an electrospun PCL loaded with phenytoin (PH) for the upregulation of fibroblast and keratinocyte growth factors, and enhanced neovascularization. Morphological and topological characterization was performed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The physicochemical properties were investigated using ATR-FTIR, TGA, and static contact angle measurements. The results of mechanical test showed that the loaded drugs did not adversely change the mechanical properties of the nanofibers. The intermediate nanofibrous layer released around 24 % of PH content on the first day followed by steady-state release over the subsequent days reaching about 45 % on the sixth day. The nanofibers loaded with TA released about 60 % of their content within the first day followed by sustained release reaching 96 % on the sixth day. In vitro studies documented the cytocompatibility of the plain and loaded nanofibers. The COL in the skin contact layer enhanced fibroblast proliferation. The in vivo burn model showed a marked increase in the wound healing efficacy of the tri-layered-loaded membrane. The decreased levels of IL-1, MMP9, TNF-alpha, and Cox2 as well as the increased levels of hydroxyproline, Nrf2, and VEGF reflected the improved outcomes of the healing of burns treated with this multifunction dressing.