Dissolvable Microneedles Coupled with Nanofiber Dressings Eradicate Biofilms via Effectively Delivering a Database-Designed Antimicrobial Peptide

Yajuan Su, Valerio Luca Mainardi, Hongjun Wang, Alec McCarthy, Yu Shrike Zhang, Shixuan Chen, Johnson V. John, Shannon L. Wong, Ronald R. Hollins, Guangshun Wang, Jingwei Xie

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

165 Scopus citations

Abstract

Biofilms in chronic wounds, including diabetic foot ulcers, pressure ulcers, and venous leg ulcers, pose a major challenge to wound management. Herein, we report a Janus-type antimicrobial dressing for eradication of biofilms in chronic wounds. The dressing consists of electrospun nanofiber membranes coupled with dissolvable microneedle arrays to enable effective delivery of a database-designed antimicrobial peptide to both inside and outside biofilms. This antimicrobial dressing exhibited high efficacy against a broad spectrum of resistant pathogens in vitro. Importantly, such a dressing was able to eradicate methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) biofilms in both an ex vivo human skin wound infection model and a type II diabetic mouse wound infection model after daily treatment without applying surgical debridement. Most importantly, the dressing can also completely remove the Pseudomonas aeruginosa and MRSA, dual-species biofilm in an ex vivo human skin infection model. In addition, our computational simulations also suggested that microneedles were more effective in the delivery of peptides to the biofilms than free drugs. Our results indicate that the Janus-type antimicrobial dressings may provide an effective treatment and management of chronic wound polymicrobial infections.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)11775-11786
Number of pages12
JournalACS Nano
Volume14
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 22 2020

Keywords

  • Janus-type dressing
  • antimicrobial peptide
  • biofilm
  • chronic wound
  • microneedle
  • nanofiber

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Materials Science
  • General Engineering
  • General Physics and Astronomy

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