Engineered dressing of hybrid chitosan-silica for effective delivery of keratin growth factor and acceleration of wound healing.

Biological dressings composed of multi-components including extracellular matrix (ECM) materials and therapeutic agents for facilitating wound healing have been actively reported. To improve the wound healing ability of chitosan dressing, sol-gel derived silica was incorporated with chitosan and this chitosan-silica hybrid dressing was combined with keratinocyte growth factor (KGF) in this study. Such hybrid dressing showed higher efficacy of KGF adsorption than pure chitosan dressing due to its porous structure and hydrophilic character. The hybrid dressing showed sustainable release profile for KGF. The delivered-KGF improved keratinocyte activities such as attachment and proliferation. In vivo animal test using excisional wound model revealed that such dressing could facilitate skin regeneration. However, the tissue regeneration process was different depending on combinatorial components in the dressing. Chitosan dressing incorporated with KGF improved the wound healing process compared to chitosan dressing without KGF. The chitosan-silica hybrid dressing combined with KGF showed the best wound healing process.