A fast and effective wound healing process would substantially decrease medical costs, wound care supplies, and hospitalization significantly improving the patients’ quality of life. The search for effective therapeutic approaches seems to be imperative in order to avoid the aggravation of chronic wounds. In spite of all the efforts that have been made during the recent years towards the development of artificial wound dressings, none of the currently available options combine all the requirements necessary for quick and optimal cutaneous regeneration. Therefore, technological advances in the area of temporary and permanent smart dressings for wound care are required. The development of nanoscience and nanotechnology can improve the materials and designs used in topical wound care in order to efficiently release antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and regenerative compounds speeding up the endogenous healing process. Nanostructured dressings can overcome the limitations of the current coverings and, separately, natural origin components can also overcome the drawbacks of current antibiotics and antiseptics (mainly cytotoxicity, antibiotic resistance, and allergies). The combination of natural origin components with demonstrated antibiotic, regenerative, or anti-inflammatory properties together with nanostructured materials is a promising approach to fulfil all the requirements needed for the next generation of bioactive wound dressings. Microbially compromised wounds have been treated with different essential oils, honey, cationic peptides, aloe vera, plant extracts, and other natural origin occurring antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and regenerative components but the available evidence is limited and insufficient to be able to draw reliable conclusions and to extrapolate those findings to the clinical practice. The evidence and some promising preliminary results indicate that future comparative studies are justified but instead of talking about the beneficial or inert effects of those natural origin occurring materials, the scientific community leads towards the identification of the main active components involved and their mechanism of action during the corresponding healing, antimicrobial, or regenerative processes and in carrying out systematic and comparative controlled tests. Once those natural origin components have been identified and their efficacy validated through solid clinical trials, their combination within nanostructured dressings can open up new avenues in the fabrication of bioactive dressings with outstanding characteristics for wound care. The motivation of this work is to analyze the state of the art in the use of different essential oils, honey, cationic peptides, aloe vera, plant extracts, and other natural origin occurring materials as antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and regenerative components with the aim of clarifying their potential clinical use in bioactive dressings. We conclude that, for those natural occurring materials, more clinical trials are needed to reach a sufficient level of evidence as therapeutic agents for wound healing management.

This study analysed the contribution of each omega-3 desaturase to the cold response in soybean. Exposure to cold temperatures (5 °C) did not result in great modifications of the linolenic acid content in leaf membrane lipids. However, an increase in the GmFAD3A transcripts was observed both in plant leaves and soybean cells whereas no changes in GmFAD3B or GmFAD3C expression levels were detected. This increase was reversible and accompanied by the accumulation of an mRNA encoding a truncated form of GmFAD3A (GmFAD3A-T), which originated from alternative splicing of GmFAD3A in response to cold. When the expression of plastidial omega-3 desaturases was analysed, a transient accumulation of GmFAD7-2 mRNA was detected upon cold exposure in mature soybean trifoliate leaves while GmFAD7-1 transcripts remained unchanged. No modification of the GmFAD8-1 and GmFAD8-2 transcripts was observed. The functionality of GmFAD3A, GmFAD3B, GmFAD3C and GmFAD3A-T was examined by heterologous expression in yeast. No activity was detected with GmFAD3A-T, consistent with the absence of one of the His boxes necessary for desaturase activity. The linolenic acid content of Sacharomyces cerevisiae cells overexpressing GmFAD3A or GmFAD3B was higher when the cultures were incubated at cooler temperatures, suggesting that reticular desaturases of the GmFAD3 family, and more specifically GmFAD3A, may play a role in the cold response, even in leaves. The data point to a regulatory mechanism of omega-3 fatty acid desaturases in soybean affecting specific isoforms in both the plastid and the endoplasmic reticulum to maintain appropriate levels of linolenic acid under low temperature conditions.

Dual drug encapsulation in biodegradable nanoparticles is always challenging and often requires strenuous optimization of the synthesis–encapsulation processes. This becomes even more difficult when the simultaneous encapsulation of molecules of different polarity is sought. Here we present a modified emulsification–evaporation process to produce polymeric nanoparticles (NPs) made of the biocompatible and biodegradable polymer poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) and co-encapsulating simultaneously two different drugs, the hydrophobic dexamethasone (DX) and the hydrophilic diclofenac sodium (DS). Three independent processing parameters were systematically modified to promote the incorporation of the different-polarity drugs into PLGA and to control the particle size under 150 nm. The careful selection of the appropriate solvents (ethyl acetate and methanol) was a key requirement for the successful encapsulation of DX and DS. DS and DX release kinetics as well as cytotoxicity assays underlined the therapeutic potential of the dual encapsulation strategy.