Wound healing is a crucial biological process for tissue repair and regeneration, preventing infections and complications. There's been a growing interest in exploring sustainable wound healing strategies in recent years. This review examines the use of green-synthesized silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) in sustainable wound healing strategies. It highlights the need for innovative approaches and the challenges posed by infections. The current wound therapies and treatments, highlighting gaps in existing methodologies, are evaluated. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the current state-of-the-art in green synthesis techniques for the synthesis of AgNPs. The properties and characterization of AgNPs are elucidated, providing insights into their efficacy. The biocompatibility of AgNPs in wound healing is also explored, emphasizing safety in medical applications. Green synthesized AgNPs incorporated wound dressings are detailed, showcasing their potential in clinical settings. Challenges and future perspectives are discussed, addressing hurdles to widespread implementation. The conclusion consolidates key findings, offering a synthesized perspective on the potential of green-synthesized AgNPs in revolutionizing current knowledge on innovative approaches for sustainable wound healing practices.
Silver nanoparticles are among the most widely researched and used for nanotechnology-derived structures due to their extraordinary inherent optical properties, chemical stability, catalytic activity, and high conductivity. These idiosyncratic properties can be attributed to their unique physico-chemical characteristics, such as ultrafine sizes, high surface area, diverse shapes, and strong localized surface plasmon resonance. These distinctive features can be tailored using various physical, chemical, and biological synthesis methods. Various physical techniques are viable for producing silver nanoparticles on a large scale, but they suffer from drawbacks such as high-power consumption, expensive set-up, and limited control over nanoparticle size distribution. Chemical methods provide benefits like high yield, consistent shape and size distribution, and cost efficiency, but the residual toxicity of the chemicals involved hinders their biological applications. Biological synthesis approaches effectively overcome the limitations of both physical and chemical methods by eliminating the need for hazardous chemicals, requiring less energy, enabling diverse nanoparticle morphologies, and offering eco-friendliness and exceptional biocompatibility. The novel and promising properties of nanosilver-based biomaterials have been demonstrated to be suitable for a wide range of pharmacological and therapeutic biomedical applications. Their extensive application in wound healing, dentistry, cardiovascular disease treatment, nerve tissue engineering, cancer treatment, and biosensing can be attributed to their inherent antimicrobial and antibiofilm activity, antithrombotic properties, potential for nerve regeneration, photothermal conversion efficiency and sensitivity, respectively. This review discusses the different methods employed for synthesising silver nanoparticles and focuses on using nanosilver-based biomaterials for various biomedical applications.
Malignant melanoma (MM) is an extremely aggressive and fatal form of skin cancer that primarily affects the bottom layer of the epidermis and is associated with poor clinical outcomes. Early-stage MM is typically treated through surgical removal, while chemotherapy and radiotherapy are common conventional treatment options that come with harmful side effects. Emerging therapies such as immunotherapy, photodynamic therapy, biologic therapy, and photothermal therapy present hopeful options for treatment due to their effective and secure drug delivery methods. To address the limitations of current treatment options, advanced methods of drug delivery for subcutaneous MM are being developed, with hydrogels emerging as a promising alternative. To date, significant advancements have been made in the treatment of MM through the use of hydrogels-based drug delivery systems through focal plastering, injection, implantation, and microneedles. Recent research on hydrogel-based drug delivery systems that integrate multiple therapies for the treatment of subcutaneous MM is discussed in this review.
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a type of liver disease for which no treatment is currently approved, remains a major concern worldwide. It is manifested as simple hepatocyte steatosis and can develop into inflammation, fibrosis, cirrhosis and liver cancer in severe cases. However, due to the lack of appropriate in vitro drug testing platforms, an in-depth understanding of the therapeutic activity of ginsenoside Rb1 in NAFLD remains challenging. Here, we proposed a NAFLD model on a liver organoids (LOs)-on-a-chip platform to evaluate the therapeutic effect of ginsenoside Rb1 in a dynamic, multi-condition and high-throughput manner. This platform allowed us to reshape certain features such as multicellular types and liver-specific functions of the physiology of the human-relative liver. Free fatty acids (FFAs)-induced LOs displayed typical pathological characteristics of NAFLD progression, including steatosis, oxidative stress, lipid peroxidation, inflammation and fibrosis. With ginsenoside Rb1 intervention, these pathological features can be significantly improved, which may provide new insights into the potential mechanisms of NAFLD progression and treatment and suggest the clinical implications for humans. The proposed system enables the formation, differentiation, and function of LOs to serve as a scalable, high-throughput and sensitive drug testing model, to potentially expedite the NAFLD drug discovery.
Conditioned medium (CM) derived from human umbilical cord-mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSCs) which contains numerous amounts of growth factors, has demonstrated potential in treatment of diabetic wounds. However, for practical application, a biodegradable supporting material is needed to hold the CM and fill in the injury site, where deep cavity wounds are often present in diabetic patients. Poly-l-lactic acid matrix coated with collagen (PLLA/CC) is a suitable carrier due to its biodegradability and biocompatibility. Thus, we present a method to immobilize the hUC-MSCs CM on PLLA/CC through freeze-drying process (PLLA/CC CM FD). When seeded on PLLA/CC CM FD, fibroblasts had an increased cellular function in producing collagen; although no enhancement in cell viability was observed. Moreover, implantation of PLLA/CC CM FD on the wound of diabetic rats showed improvement in wound closure and collagen deposition in the wound area. Altogether, this study exhibits the potential of PLLA/CC CM FD as a therapy for diabetic deep cavity wound.
Nucleus Pulposus (NP) Replacement is a developing surgical methodology for the treatment of pathology related to degeneration of intervertebral discs (IVDs). This article provides necessary context regarding the pathologies treated with this technology, the biomechanical structure and function of the IVD, and the procedures this technology aims to replace. Primarily, it provides an overview and discussion of commercial and experimental preformed and in situ curing prosthesis designs reported in the scientific literature and summarizes the results of biomechanical and clinical studies evaluating their efficacy. Contextual and updated information on the most recent research into NP replacement with novel hydrogel and tissue engineering (TE) strategies is described. Replacement of the NP allows for potential improvement in the treatment of degenerative spinal pathologies through minimally invasive surgical techniques.