Two-Dimensional Borocarbonitride Nanosheet-Engineered Hydrogel as an All-In-One Platform for Melanoma Therapy and Skin Regeneration

The postoperative tumor recurrence and repairing skin defects in clinical melanoma therapy remain challenging. Recent years have seen the development of visible-to-near-infrared (NIR) light for melanoma therapy or tissue regeneration. For solving the integrated issue of melanoma treatment and skin wounds repair, a gentle and efficient strategy is essential to utilize the multifunction of light. Here, we presented a new light-mediation concept and reported a light-responsive intelligent hydrogel system by introducing two-dimensional (2D) borocarbonitride (BCN) nanosheets into the methacrylated hyaluronic acid (HA) matrix (HA@BCN). The hydrogel was skillfully fabricated under the activation of blue light and exhibited excellent biocompatibility, mechanical robustness, and biodegradability, and then, a gentle and powerful multifunction for cutaneous melanoma therapy and wound healing under NIR light irradiation was performed. Based on this result, multifunctional hydrogels could be triggered by NIR light (0.35 W/cm2) for killing tumor cells, at least an 80% mortality rate in 10 min. Subsequently, the HA@BCN hydrogel could release more boron moieties as the growth promoter under moderate NIR light irradiation, which largely accelerated the wound healing. Therefore, our discovery presented a light-mediated and 2D nanomaterial-functionalized versatile hydrogel system for cutaneous melanoma photothermal therapy.