Design and engineering of biomimetic aloe vera sponges via recombination of functionalized peel and gel for enhanced wound healing

Abstract

Wound healing remains a complex clinical challenge due to excessive exudate accumulation, bacterial infection, sustained inflammation, and impaired tissue regeneration, highlighting the urgent need for multifunctional therapeutic dressings. Although medicinal plants such as aloe vera have long been used for skin wound treatment, the isolated use of its rind or gel limits their ability to address the dynamic and stage-specific requirements of wound healing. Here, we report a supramolecular and plant-inspired engineering strategy to construct aloe vera-mimicking sponges (AMSs) that integrate nanoscale therapeutic functionality with a macroscopic porous scaffold to enable stepwise wound healing. Exosome-like nanovesicles are first derived from aloe vera peels via an extrusion process and further loaded with nanoenzymes, yielding mimetic peel nanovesicles (NAPNs) with controllable photothermal behavior and nitric oxide (NO) generation capability. These NAPNs are subsequently incorporated into porous sponge scaffolds obtained from freeze-dried aloe vera gel, forming bioinspired AMSs with precisely controllable pore structures. Owing to their interconnected porous architecture and excellent water retention capacity, the AMSs efficiently manage wound exudates and facilitate bacterial adsorption. Under near-infrared irradiation, the synergistic photothermal-NO effects enable potent antibacterial activity through strong, localized hyperthermia, while mild and controllable photothermal regulation further alleviates inflammation and promotes cellular proliferation and migration, thereby accelerating skin tissue regeneration. Overall, this work presents a biomimetic, nanomedicine-integrated, and structurally programmable dressing platform that bridges plant-inspired materials engineering with wound surface nanotherapy, offering a stepwise and synergistic strategy for enhanced skin wound healing.