Antibacterial polylysine˗containing hydrogels for hemostatic and wound healing applications: Preparation methods, current advances and future perspectives

Abstract

Treatment of wounds, particularly chronic wounds, is one of the critical challenges facing healthcare system. Delayed wound healing can impose a remarkable burden on patients and health care professionals. Given their unique three-dimensional porous structure, biocompatibility, high hydrophilicity, capability to provide a moist environment while absorbing wound exudate, permeability to both gas and oxygen, and tunable mechanical properties, hydrogels with antibacterial function are one of the promising candidates for wound healing applications. Polylysine is a cationic polymer with the advantages of inherent antibacterial properties, biodegradability, and biocompatibility. Therefore, its utilization to engineer antibacterial hydrogels to accelerate wound healing is of great interest. This review first illustrates ε-polylysine and its properties and then focus on most recent advances in polylysine-containing hydrogels (since 2016) made by various chemical and physical crosslinking methods for hemostasis and wound healing applications. The challenges and future directions in the engineering of these antibacterial hydrogels for wound healing are additionally discussed.