Carbon-Dot-Zn²⁺ Assembly Hybrid Multifunctional Hydrogels for Synergistically Monitoring Local Glucose and Repairing Diabetic Wound

The prolonged healing period and increased rates of amputation and mortality are significant challenges for diabetic patients’ wound care in clinical practice. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop timely and efficient wound management strategies to monitor the local glucose while promoting rapid wound healing. In this study, a multifunctional hydrogel (PF127@Zn/C-G) was constructed by coloading the monitoring and therapeutic carbon dot (CD)-based agents (Zn/C) and glucose oxidase (GOx). For applications, the ″off–on″ characteristic in fluorescence (FL) signal of the Zn/C assemblies enabled the real-time monitoring of the local glucose levels in diabetic wounds. Moreover, the synergistic effect of Zn 2+ and CDs was developed to promote wound healing. In vitro and in vivo results showed that the PF127@Zn/C-G hydrogel exhibited a good linear relationship between FL intensity and glucose concentration, and the FL signal intensity in the wound environment in vivo correlated well with the blood glucose, suggesting its function for timely reflection of the blood glucose content. In addition, the PF127@Zn/C-G hydrogel could accurately fit the wound contour to form a protective film, while effectively promoting cell proliferation and migration, and scavenging the accumulated ROS at the local wound, exhibiting an excellent angiogenic capacity and collagen deposition for significantly accelerating the wound healing during tissue remodeling. Therefore, the multifunctional hydrogel lPF127@Zn/C-G provides an effective and feasible candidate for improving the diabetic wound management.