Diabetes-related chronic wounds are often accompanied by a poor wound-healing environment such as high glucose, recurrent infections, and inflammation, and standard wound treatments are fairly limited in their ability to heal these wounds. Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have been developed to improve therapeutic outcomes due to their ease of engineering, surface functionalization, and therapeutic properties. In this review, we summarize the different synthesis methods of MOFs and conduct a comprehensive review of the latest research progress of MOFs in the treatment of diabetes and its wounds. State-of-the-art in vivo oral hypoglycemic strategies and the in vitro diagnosis of diabetes are enumerated and different antimicrobial strategies (including physical contact, oxidative stress, photothermal, and related ions or ligands) and provascular strategies for the treatment of diabetic wounds are compared. It focuses on the connections and differences between different applications of MOFs as well as possible directions for improvement. Finally, the potential toxicity of MOFs is also an issue that we cannot ignore.

Hypoxia is a major stressor and a prominent feature of pathological conditions, such as bacterial infections, inflammation, wounds, and cardiovascular defects. In this study, we investigated whether reoxygenation has a protective effect against hypoxia-induced acute injury and burn using the C57BL/6 mouse model. C57BL/6 mice were exposed to hypoxia and treated with both acute and burn injuries and were in hypoxia until wound healing. Next, C57BL/6 mice were exposed to hypoxia for three days and then transferred to normoxic conditions for reoxygenation until wound healing. Finally, skin wound tissue was collected to analyze healing-related markers, such as inflammation, vascularization, and collagen. Hypoxia significantly increased inflammatory cell infiltration and decreased vascular and collagen production, and reoxygenation notably attenuated hypoxia-induced infiltration of inflammatory cells, upregulation of pro-inflammatory cytokine levels (IL-6 and TNF-α) in the wound, and remission of inflammation in the wound. Immunofluorescence analysis showed that reoxygenation increased the expression of the angiogenic factor α-SMA and decreased ROS expression in burn tissues compared to hypoxia-treated animals. Moreover, further analysis by qPCR showed that reoxygenation could alleviate the expression of hypoxic-induced inflammatory markers (IL-6 and TNF), increase angiogenesis (SMA) and collagen synthesis (Col I), and thus promote wound healing. It is suggested that oxygen can be further evaluated in combination with oxygen-releasing materials as a supplementary therapy for patients with chronic hypoxic wounds.