In clinical application, it's highly desirable for developing bio-functionalized cutaneous scaffold with transparent features for convenient observation, excellent biocompatibility, and high efficiency for promoting
wound repair. Herein,
allantoin-functionalized composite
hydrogel was developed by coupling
silk fibroin (SF) and
sodium alginate (SA) for treatment of cutaneous
wounds. The prepared
allantoin-functionalized SF-SA composite scaffolds (AFAS) exhibited excellent mechanical properties, especially featured by similar ultimate tensile strength (UTS) and elongation at breaking to human skin. Besides, the
solvent-casting method guaranteed the AFAS to obtain highly transparent properties with sufficient moisture permeability and excellent adhesion in wet state. In vitro cellular experiments demonstrated excellent biocompatibility of the scaffold that attachment and proliferation of NIH-3T3 fibroblast cells was promoted in the presence of AFAS. Furthermore, the scaffolds exhibited efficient
hemostatic property, based on rat hepatic
hemorrhage model. In a cutaneous excisional mouse
wound model, the AFAS significantly improved the
wound closure rate, compared with pure SF-SA scaffolds and blank control. Moreover, the histomorphological assessments showed that AFAS facilitated the integrity of skin and wound healing process by enhancing
collagen deposition, re-epithelialization and vascularization at
wound site. The results demonstrate that the novel
allantoin-functionalized SF/SA transparent
hydrogel has great potential for clinical treatment of cutaneous
wound.