Marine polysaccharides as promising 3D printable biomaterials for potential wound healing and antimicrobial therapeutics delivery: A review.

The skin functions as a barrier shielding the human body from external stress. Damage to this barrier causes pain, swelling, blood and fluid loss, and exposes the underlying tissues to microbial contamination. While the body naturally initiates wound healing, the process is often slow, accompanied by scar formation and partial loss of skin functionality. Delayed treatment can exacerbate tissue and organ damage, increase infection risk, and elevate healthcare costs. Advances in soft tissue engineering, have led to the development of a range of wound dressings with therapeutic potential. Given the variability in wound types and severity, personalized wound care has become a clinical priority. Owing to the outstanding spatiotemporal controllability of high-precision 3D printing, it offers great potential for fabricating wound dressings with controlled 3D architectures, thereby providing better treatment opportunities for wound therapy. Marine derived polysaccharides, owing to their non-toxic, biocompatible, and structural similarity to the extracellular matrix fulfill key requirements of wound dressing materials. This review highlights the integration of marine algae derived polysaccharides (alginate, fucoidan, laminarin, carrageenan, and ulvan) and marine animal derived polysaccharides (chitosan and hyaluronic acid) with 3D printing technologies to fabricate next-generation, patient centric wound care solutions. Since wounds are often accompanied by infection, this review also highlights the synchronous delivery of antimicrobial therapeutics through 3D printed constructs to inhibit microbial growth and promote effective wound healing. In addition, limitations and challenges associated with the use of marine polysaccharides are also discussed in detail.