Fabrication and characterization of phytochemicals
incorporated ECM-polymer functional films for wound healing

Abstract

Chronic wounds are such wounds which do not heal through normal physiological healing process. Different bandages and medicines have been tried to heal such wounds but these are very recalcitrant to get healed. Millions of people are being affected by these and hence need special attention. Major reasons for pathogenesis of chronic wounds mainly include insufficient and disorganized extracellular matrix (ECM), insufficient angiogenesis, adipogenesis, and some ulcers caused by chronic infections, that all together lead to chronic inflammations and the persistence of these wounds.Therefore, in my study, I targeted all the above mentioned causatives of chronic ulcers by the preparation of ECM based composite scaffolds which were then characterized through swelling, water vapor permeability, biodegradability, in – vitro cytotoxicity, XRD, FTIR, etc. Phytochemicals being famous for their medicinal values have been used since ages. Therefore, Curcumin, a well known phytochemical was incorporated in the prepared film to study the drug release kinetics. The effect of the phytochemicals was studied over angiogenesis, adipogenesis and over special category of ulcers through in silico analysis. The selected phytochemicals were also extracted as a crude extract through the soxhlet method, which were then screened through biochemical tests. Concentration of these phytochemicals was also optimized for the stem cell proliferation and was found to be compatible with them.