Functional Wound Dressing Based on Natural Compounds from Traditional Chinese Medicines─Magnolol for Accelerating Wound Healing

Traditional petroleum-based foam dressings offer limitations due to poor biocompatibility, long preparation cycle, and serious environmental pollution. In addition, free small molecules of incomplete polymers and residual toxic cross-linkers pose a threat to the health of patients and hinder the rapid repair of wounds. Recently, natural compounds extracted from plants have gained a lot of interest in the field of wound repair due to their good biocompatibility, biodegradability, and therapeutic effects. In this study, we successfully prepared magnolol-based porous foams by a simple one-pot method using magnolol herbal exhibiting good mechanical properties, hydrophobicity, and biocompatibility, and meets the requirements of wound dressings. The Janus composite dressing was prepared using a magnolol-based porous foam as the inner layer, PVA nonwoven fabric as the middle layer, and polyacrylate as the outer layer. The three-layer structure of magnolol-based porous foam/PVA nonwoven fabric/polyacrylate (MPF/PVA/PAAS) has the capacity to realize unidirectional diversion and rapid water locking of liquid. In vivo experimental data showed that MPF/PVA/PAAS dressing significantly promoted collagen deposition and angiogenesis, and could shorten the wound healing cycle from 14 days to 10 days, significantly accelerating the wound healing process compared to traditional wound dressings. Hence, magnolol-based foam dressings show great application potential in the field of wound treatment.