Construction of antibacterial photothermal PCL/AgNPs/BP nanofibers for infected wound healing

[Display omitted] •BP is used to solve the shortcoming of AgNPs easy polymerization.•This nanofibers exert excellent antibacterial activity and good biocompatibility.•This wound dressing creates a “hot spring” effect on the wound site.•The synergistic effect of silver ions and thermal stimulation promotes rapid healing of infected wound. Infected wound healing remains a significant issue in clinical medicine and has attracted wide attention in the field of biomedical engineering. Although a range of bioactive materials have been developed, few provide sufficient antibacterial and pro-angiogenic effects for effective wound healing. Herein, we constructed a series of nanofibers (termed PL-n, n = 0, 1, and 2) based on polycaprolactone (PCL), nanosilvers (AgNPs) and black phosphorus (BP) using electrospinning technology. The water contact angle of PL-n decreased significantly from 144.00 ± 1.00° for PL-0 to 0° for PL-2. The photothermal temperature increased significantly from 27.27 ± 0.25 °C for PL-0 to 40.7 ± 0.15 °C for PL-2. After exposure to near-infrared ray (NIR), the release rate of PL-2 increased from 78.00 ± 2.95 % to 89.46 ± 2.05 %. Biological experiments demonstrated that NIR-assisted PL-2 has excellent antibacterial and biofilm ablation activity with good biocompatibility. Furthermore, in vivo studies indicated that the NIR-assisted PL-2 accelerated wound healing by stimulating granulation tissue formation, collagen deposition, and angiogenesis and decreasing expression levels of CD68. The study suggests that this bi-functional nanofiber is indeed a versatile wound dressing, and is expected to be applied in clinical settings.