Zhiwei Sun,1,* Xiangru Chen,1,* Fang Miao,2,* Na Meng,3 Keqiang Hu,1 Shaotang Xiong,4 Ximing Peng,1 Liya Ma,5 Chuchao Zhou,1 Yanqing Yang1 

1Department of Plastic Surgery, Tongren Hospital of Wuhan University (Wuhan Third Hospital), Wuhan, 430060, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Dermatology, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430060, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Tongren Hospital of Wuhan University (Wuhan Third Hospital), Wuhan, 430060, People’s Republic of China; 4The Second People’s Hospital of China Three Gorges University·the Second People’s Hospital of Yichang, Hubei, People’s Republic of China; 5The Centre of Analysis and Measurement of Wuhan University, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, People’s Republic of China

*These authors contributed equally to this work

Correspondence: Yanqing Yang; Chuchao Zhou, Email yangyq0106@163.com; chuchaozhou@163.com

Introduction: Graphene oxide (GO) nanoparticles have emerged as a compelling photothermal agent (PHTA) in the realm of photothermal antibacterial therapy, owing to their cost-effectiveness, facile synthesis, and remarkable photostability. Nevertheless, the therapeutic efficacy of GO nanoparticles is commonly hindered by their inherent drawback of low photothermal conversion efficiency (PCE).
Methods: Herein, we engineer the Ag/GO-GelMA platform by growing the Ag on the surface of GO and encapsulating the Ag/GO nanoparticles into the GelMA hydrogels.
Results: The resulting Ag/GO-GelMA platform demonstrates a significantly enhanced PCE (47.6%), surpassing that of pure GO (11.8%) by more than fourfold. As expected, the Ag/GO-GelMA platform, which was designed to integrate the benefits of Ag/GO nanoparticles (high PCE) and hydrogel (slowly releasing Ag+ to exert an inherent antibacterial effect), has been shown to exhibit exceptional antibacterial efficacy. Furthermore, transcriptome analyses demonstrated that the Ag/GO-GelMA platform could significantly down-regulate pathways linked to inflammation (the MAPK and PI3K-Akt pathways) and had the ability to promote cell migration.
Discussion: Taken together, this study presents the design of a potent photothermal antibacterial platform (Ag/GO-GelMA) aimed at enhancing the healing of infectious wounds. The platform utilizes a handy method to enhance the PCE of GO, thereby making notable progress in the utilization of GO nano-PHTAs.

Keywords: Ag/GO nanoparticles, photothermal therapy, photothermal conversion efficiency, hydrogel, infectious wound healing