Porous Hyaluronic Acid Hydrogels for Localized Non-Viral DNA Delivery in a Diabetic Wound Healing Model

• Published in: Advanced healthcare materials 2015-02, Vol.4 (7), p.1084-1091
• Main Authors: Tokatlian, Talar, Cam, Cynthia, Segura, Tatiana
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2192-2640; 2192-2659
• DOI: 10.1002/adhm.201400783

The treatment of impaired wounds requires the use of biomaterials that can provide mechanical and biological queues to the surrounding environment to promote angiogenesis, granulation tissue formation, and wound closure. Porous hydrogels have previously been shown to promote angiogenesis even in the absence of pro-angiogenic factors. We hypothesized that the added delivery of non-viral DNA encoding for pro-angiogenic growth factors could further enhance this effect. Here, 100 and 60 μm porous and non-porous (n-pore) hyaluronic acid-MMP hydrogels with encapsulated reporter (pGFPluc) or pro-angiogenic (pVEGF) plasmids were used to investigate scaffold-mediated gene delivery for local gene therapy in a diabetic wound healing mouse model. Porous hydrogels allowed for significantly faster wound closure compared to n-pore hydrogels, which did not degrade and essentially provided a mechanical barrier to closure. Interestingly, the delivery of pDNA/PEI polyplexes positively promoted granulation tissue formation even when the DNA did not encode for an angiogenic protein. And although transfected cells were present throughout the granulation tissue surrounding all hydrogels at 2 weeks, pVEGF delivery did not further enhance the angiogenic response. Despite this, the presence of transfected cells shows promise for the use of polyplex-loaded porous hydrogels for local gene delivery in the treatment of diabetic wounds.