Skin wound healing involves proliferation, inflammation, regeneration, and remodeling. These processes are severely impaired in diabetes due to advanced glycation end-product accumulation, excessive reactive oxygen species, and vascular dysfunction, requiring multifunctional therapeutic and innovative wound care approaches. Thus, many electrospun polymeric matrices were investigated to enhance wound-healing efficacy; however, few studies have examined ZnO NPs embedded multi-component polymeric nanofibers for diabetic wound healing, where infection, oxidative stress, and delayed regeneration persist as major impediments to diabetic wound repair. Addressing these challenges, this study developed a novel therapeutic strategy using electrospun nanofibers of poly(vinyl alcohol)-chitosan-poly(methyl methacrylate) (PVA-Cs-PMMA) integrated with biogenic zinc oxide nanoparticles (Bio-ZnO NPs) synthesized from Syzygium guineense. Comprehensively characterized using UV-vis, FTIR, XRD, TEM, SEM-EDX, and XPS analyses, confirming nanoscale crystalline structure and strong polymer-nanoparticle interactions. Bio-ZnO NPs exhibited potent antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus (29.38 ± 0.91 mm) and Escherichia coli (27.82 ± 0.95 mm), alongside strong antioxidant performance (IC50 = 11.60 mg mL-1, R2 = 0.966). In vivo diabetic wound demonstrated accelerated healing (≥99% closure in 14 days) with enhanced re-epithelialization and collagen deposition, without histopathological abnormalities in major organs. These findings underscore Bio-ZnO NPs@PVA-Cs-PMMA nanofibers as an effective biomaterial with strong potential for advanced diabetic wound management.
Begeno et al. (Sun,) studied this question.