Nanoparticle and nanomaterial involvement during the wound healing process: an update in the field

The skin represents our first defense against physical, mechanical, or biological damage. However, its regeneration potential depends on the degree of the wound and the systemic state. For large acute or chronic wounds, specialized treatments are required to stimulate regeneration and avoid scarring. The use of nanotechnology represents a promising tool to promote wound healing, not only by developing antibacterial nanomaterials to prevent infection, but also by developing nanomaterials capable of enhancing cell proliferation, extracellular matrix deposition, and angiogenesis, as well as regulating inflammation. Nanotechnology offers a new and wide field of application for materials, due to the unique properties of nanomaterials that normally differ from, or are enhanced compared to, bulk materials. Nanomaterial properties changed mainly due to its larger contact area, which normally results in better optical, catalytic, and biodistribution properties. Due to their physical–chemical characteristics, nanoparticles can be tailored in different ways to be delivered and act at the site of injury, improving wound healing. Nanoparticles can be incorporated into different substrates to generate antibacterial coverages, they can be functionalized and tailored to be used as vectors for delivering signaling molecules (growth factors), or their properties such as size, crystallinity, surface chemistry, and shape can be modified to elicit different biological effects. The present work is aimed at resuming the advances of the last decade in nanoparticles used to improve wound healing based on their antimicrobial activity, cell proliferation enhancement, angiogenesis promotion, regulation of extracellular matrix deposition, and anti-inflammatory modulation. Graphical abstract