Novel Tannic Acid based Nanocomposite Hydrogel with In-SITU synthesized silver Nanoparticles for Irregular infectious wounds

Abstract

With a larger number of people getting diagnosed with chronic inflammatory diseases like diabetes, chronic hepatitis, etc the inflammation has resulted in delayed wound healing. Other factors affecting the rate of wound healing include desiccation, anomaly in the presence of bacteria, maceration, necrosis, high pressure at the wound site and edema. In order to tackle this glossed-over problem, hydrogels seem to be promising solutions that may increase the rate of wound healing. The novel hydrogel of gelatin/chondroitin sulphate/tannic acid as the base material shall produce an injectable, a self-healing high tensile strength hydrogel for topical application and the use of silver nanoparticles shall induce the anti-bacterial and antifungal property in the gel with strong bio adhesiveness. Localised delivery of Tannic acid at the site of wound shall combat the hypoxia condition and infectious complications due to its antioxidant, antibacterial anti-inflammatory properties. The project focused on optimisation and synthesis of the hydrogel, followed by the physico-chemical characterisation and its in-vitro analysis of antibacterial efficacy, biocompatibility, anti-oxidant analysis, etc with a scope of in-vivo testing at later stage. Results suggested high anti-oxidant activity of the hydrogel, good biocompatibility and an enhanced anti-bacterial effectiveness when tested on E. coli and S. aureus with increased concentration of silver oxide nanoparticles and tannic acid in hydrogel. The in-vivo results confirmed the efficacy of the formulated hydrogel as greater collagen content, fibroblast generation, neovascularization and hair follicle development was evident in the tissue histology of the loaded material group as compared to the negative control group i.e. saline. In conclusion, the formulated hydrogel seems promising to combat the problem of delayed wound healing.