Long-term non-healing diabetic
wounds are always a serious challenge and a global healthcare burden that needs to be resolved urgently in the clinic. Prolonged
inflammation and impaired angiogenesis are the main direct causes of diabetic
wounds. With the development of
polymer biomaterials, various
wound dressings have been created, but a few of them have been applied to the clinical management of diabetic
wounds. Here, we developed a mussel-inspired bioactive scaffold consisting mainly of
collagen and
hyaluronic acid, which are natural
biopolymer materials contained in human tissues. First, we fabricated different
polydopamine modified lyophilized
collagen hyaluronic acid scaffolds under different concentrations of
dopamine alkaline solutions, 0.5, 1, 2 mg/mL, so named CHS-PDA-0.5, CHS-PDA-1, CHS-PDA-2. After testing their physical and chemical properties,
antioxidant effect,
inflammation regulation, as well as drug loading and release capabilities, we obtained a bioactive
endothelial growth factor (
EGF)-loaded
wound dressing, CHS-PDA-2@
EGF, which can resist
reactive oxygen species (ROS) and promote the regeneration of chronic
wounds in diabetic rats by reducing
inflammation. In addition, the scaffold showed excellent swelling ability, a certain coagulation effect and reasonable degradation. Therefore, the scaffold has great potential to be used in clinical diabetic
wound treatment as a low-cost and easily available
wound dressing to accelerate chronic wound healing.