BACKGROUND

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a long-term metabolic disease accompanied by difficulties in wound healing placing a severe financial and physical burden on patients. As one of the important signal transduction molecules, both endogenous and exogenous hydrogen sulfide (HS) was found to promote diabetic wound healing in recent studies. HS at physiological concentrations can not only promote cell migration and adhesion functions, but also resist inflammation, oxidative stress and inappropriate remodeling of the extracellular matrix.

AIM OF REVIEW

The purpose of this review is to summarize current research on the function of HS in diabetic wound healing at all stages, and propose future directions.

KEY SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS OF REVIEW

In this review, first, the various factors affecting wound healing under diabetic pathological conditions and the in vivo HS generation pathway are briefly introduced. Second, how HS may improve diabetic wound healing is categorized and described. Finally, we discuss the relevant HS donors and new dosage forms, analyze and reveal the characteristics of many typical HS donors, which may provide new ideas for the development of HS-released agents to improve diabetic wound healing.