Sericin-based wound dressing with wound moisture indicator: In vitro and in vivo comparison study

In this study, a remarkable breakthrough was made by using sericin, which is normally recognized as a degumming waste, to fabricate a novel sericin-based wound dressing with wound moisture indicator. Instead of the typical porosity and cytotoxicity assays for this foam type dressing, a series of UV-vis and fluorescence spectroscopic determinations were conducted to elucidate the “on” and “off” display mechanism of the moisture indicator. We found that the ellagic acid (EA)/silk fibroin protein/simulated body fluid are the three key components resulted in the emission wavelength and optical density of fluorescent emission. In vitro, sericin-based wound dressing with wound moisture indicator exhibited extra benefit on promoting the growth of fibroblast cell but a must care is to strike a balance between fluorescent emission strength for moisture indication function and the cytotoxicity of EA as we found that inappropriate addition amount of EA caused remarkable adverse effect on cell viability. In vivo, this novel sericin-based wound dressing with a wound moisture indicator was successfully proved on traumatic mice model that it can display the moisture status of the wound without the needing to lift the dressing. Also, the fastest wound closure result and less frequency of dressing change in sericin-based wound dressing with wound moisture indicator-treated group were achieved.