Curcumin nanoparticles loaded in a bioengineering and biodegradable silk-hyaluronan scaffold triggered wound healing by regulating inflammation and accelerating proliferation in a diabetic rat model

The complex causes of diabetic wounds require a combined strategy for effective treatment. Herein we investigated whether bioengineering and biodegradable silk-hyaluronan (SH) scaffold incorporated with curcumin nanoparticles (CN) could promote wound repairing in diabetic rats. Forty-five diabetic animals were randomly divided into the control group, SH group, and CN-incorporated SH (SCN) group. Sampling took place on days 4 and 8 for additional evaluations. Evaluations indicated that the parameters related to regeneration, including wound closure, fibroblasts and blood vessel counts, collagen density, and tensile strength, as well as concentration levels of TGF-β and VEGF in both treatment groups were considerably greater than those of the control group, and these changes were more obvious in the SCN ones. This is while the number of neutrophils and macrophages, and the concentration levels of TNF-α and IL-1β decreased more notably in the SCN group than the other groups. In general, these results indicated that using the complementary or synergistic impacts of curcumin nanoparticles and SH could be a promising approach to accelerate diabetic wound healing.