Xyloglucan-based hydrogels: A biomaterials chemistry contribution towards advanced wound healing

The last two decades have witnessed the introduction of several new wound dressings, with many of them being hydrogels for the advantages that these materials can offer in the application. However, despite the advancements and the wide range of dressings available, wound management is still an extremely challenging task due to its subjectivity, complexity and scarce knowledge of the wound healing process itself, and patient variability. For this reason, an interdisciplinary approach to wound care that can help reducing the incidence and prevalence of wounds is needed. One important goal would be to develop “smart” wound dressings that are easy to apply, wear and be removed, that are able to maintain a good balance between hydration of the wound bed and fluid absorption, that can act as a barrier against bacteria to prevent infections, yet allowing oxygenation, that are able to provide the physician with relevant information on physico-chemical and biological parameters to monitor the state of the wound and the healing process without requiring direct inspection, that can (eventually) release drugs or play regeneration functions to sustain and enhance the healing process. This very ambitious goal can only be achieved by merging contributions from different fields of research and expertise. In particular, the field of (bio)materials science and technology for the development of materials with the required combination of physico-chemical, mechanical and barrier properties, skin electronics for the integration of sensors and actuators, and tissue engineering to explore the possibility of including in the “smart” dressing also tissue regeneration function. The design of new materials for wound management applications can, in principle, benefit from the use of an intrinsically active polymer. Among all the available polymers, xyloglucan (XG) combines several favourable properties, which make it a suitable candidate for the scope: • It is abundant in nature, thus low-cost and its extraction is easy and high yield, • it is characterized by a very interesting self-assembly behaviour, • it is biodegradable and biocompatible; due to its vegetal origin it should not elicit the response of the human immune system, • there are a few studies concerning the possibility to employ this polysaccharide for biomedical applications, and it has been shown to have intrinsic activity such as anti-inflammatory properties for application through the skin and potential beneficial effect in reepithelization and remodelling, • it has film-forming properties, • and it is approved by FDA as food additive. For all of these reasons, xyloglucan is believed to have great potential on wound healing, making its application worth to be investigated. This study intends to attempt the merge of some elements from (bio)materials science, skin electronics and tissue engineering for the production of dressings and materials which could stimulate wound healing. In particular, it is aimed to: • develop a new platform of materials using xyloglucan to produce hydrogel as wound dressings and/or scaffolds; • investigate co-assembly as method to produce fibrous scaffolds that are known to favour wound healing; • identify a suitable technology that can allow the development of a wearable sensor for advanced wound management.