A novel collagen hydrogel loaded with primary brown sugar for accelerating burn wound healing by a synergistic mechanism

Severe skin burns present complex clinical challenges including delayed healing and scar formation. As the first-extracted product of sugarcane, brown sugar has a long application history in Chinese traditional medicine. Inspired by its medicine benefits, this study developed a collagen-based hydrogel co-loaded with brown sugar and epicatechin (COL-BS-EC) and evaluated its synergistic enhancement of therapeutic potential for promoting burn regenerative healing by comparison with comprehensive control groups, and explored its relevant mechanisms involving in the synergistic actions of non-sucrose components. Such designed hydrogel showed potent species-selective antibacterial activity, particularly against S. aureus, and high DPPH radical scavenging. In vitro assays confirmed significant reductions in pro-inflammatory TNF-α and increases in anti-inflammatory IL-10, alongside enhanced fibroblast migration and proliferation. The experimental results from burn models on mice and rats revealed that COL-BS-EC group accelerated the wound closure with reducing residual wound area to about 6% on day 14, promoted organized collagen deposition of 32% versus 13% in control group, and doubled neo vessel density. This study provides a modern scientific validation for the synergistic therapy efficacy of brown sugar for wound tissue and explore the potential of this concept applied onto biomaterial design for clinical burn wound.