Chinese herbal medicine-inspired construction of multi-component hydrogels with antibacterial and wound-healing-promoting functions

Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) has offered a great treasure and source of inspiration for developing innovative medicinal materials and therapy. In this work, inspired by the macroscopic compatibility of <i>Puerariae Lobatae Radix</i> and <i>Gypsum Ustum</i> in CHM, the puerarin (PUE) and CaSO₄ (Ca) as the main constituents, respectively, from the two herbs are co-assembled into two-component molecular hydrogels. Such two-component gels exhibited enhanced mechanical properties compared with the single-component PUE gel due to the introduction of crosslinking hydrogen bonds between PUE and Ca. Importantly, the two-component gels show good biocompatibility and antibacterial and antioxidant properties. Moreover, <i>in vivo</i> wound healing experiments on an <i>E. coli</i>-infected mouse model together with the histological and immunological analyses were conducted, revealing that the two-component gels possessed good wound-healing-promoting functions. Our research shows how the medication practice of CHM can contribute to the development of novel bio-soft materials. It is anticipated that more herbal medicine-inspired medicinal materials will be built and tailored for specific bio-applications.