Journal of colloid and interface scienceOct 12, 2025

Light-Activated Hydrogel Combining Heat, Light, and Gas Treatments to Fight MRSA Infections and Speed Up Wound Healing

Regenerative Health Weekly Brief ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Updated Apr 6, 2026

Abstract

The APT/OC hydrogel shows significant antibacterial effects against E. coli and MRSA, enhancing wound healing.

Near-infrared light activation of the hydrogel releases nitric oxide, which may combat drug-resistant bacterial infections.
In vitro and in vivo studies indicate that this hydrogel significantly inhibits the growth and biofilm formation of E. coli and MRSA.
The hydrogel's synergistic therapeutic approach could lead to faster healing of wounds infected by resistant bacteria.
The formulation includes components like hyaluronic acid, carboxymethyl chitosan, and mesoporous titanium dioxide.

Simplified

Conventional wound dressings exhibit limited functionality and bacterial-infected wounds may contribute to the development of drug resistance. Consequently, there is a critical demand for multifunctional nanocomposite hydrogels with enhanced antibacterial efficacy to facilitate rapid healing of infected wounds. Here, we developed a cascade reactor hydrogel (APT/OC) for releasing nitric oxide (NO) to achieve near-infrared (1064 nm) light-activated photothermal/photodynamic/gas synergistic therapy for drug-resistant bacteria-infected wounds. APT/OC hydrogel is prepared by inducing with polyphenolic amino acids and reversible crosslinking, using hyaluronic acid (HA), carboxymethyl chitosan (CMCS), L-arginine (L-Arg), polydopamine (PDA) and mesoporous titanium dioxide (m-TiO). In vitro and in vivo analyses revealed that the synergistic therapeutic effects triggered by near-infrared irradiation significantly inhibited the proliferation and biofilm formation of E. coli and MRSA，and markedly accelerated the healing of drug-resistant wounds. Overall, the proposed hydrogel shows great potential in meeting the complex repair requirements arising from antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections of wounds. 2

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Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

PubMed

Light-Activated Hydrogel Combining Heat, Light, and Gas Treatments to Fight MRSA Infections and Speed Up Wound Healing

Abstract

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Competing interests

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Abstract

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