A liposomes-in-hydrogel system as an advanced wound dressing for dermal delivery of curcumin was proposed for improved chronic wound therapy. Curcumin, a multitargeting poorly soluble active substance with known beneficial properties for improved wound healing, was incorporated in deformable liposomes to overcome its poor solubility. Chitosan hydrogel served as a vehicle providing superior wound healing properties. The novel system should assure sustained skin delivery of curcumin, and increase its retention at the skin site, utilizing both curcumin and chitosan to improve the therapy outcome. To optimize the properties of the formulation and determine the effect of the liposomal charge on the hydrogel properties, curcumin-containing deformable liposomes (DLs) with neutral (NDLs), cationic (CDLs), and anionic (ADLs) surface properties were incorporated in chitosan hydrogel. The charged DLs affected the hydrogel’s hardness, cohesiveness, and adhesiveness. Importantly, the incorporation of DLs, regardless of their surface charge, in chitosan hydrogel did not decrease the system’s bioadhesion to human skin. Stability testing revealed that the incorporation of CDLs in hydrogel preserved hydrogel´s bioadhesiveness to a higher degree than both NDLs and ADLs. In addition, CDLs-in-hydrogel enabled the most sustained skin penetration of curcumin. The proposed formulation should be further evaluated in a chronic wound model.

An active wound dressing should address the main goals in wound treatment, which are improved wound healing and reduced infection rates. We developed novel multifunctional nanofibrous wound dressings with three active ingredients: chloramphenicol (CAM), beta-glucan (βG) and chitosan (CHI), of which βG and CHI are active nanofiber-forming biopolymers isolated from the cell walls of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and from shrimp shells, respectively. To evaluate the effect of each active ingredient on the nanofibers’ morphological features and bioactivity, nanofibers with both βG and CHI, only βG, only CHI and only copolymers, polyethylene oxide (PEO) and hydroxypropylmethylcellulose (HPMC) were fabricated. All four nanofiber formulations were also prepared with 1% CAM. The needle-free Nanospider^TM technique allowed for the successful production of defect-free nanofibers containing all three active ingredients. The CAM-containing nanofibers had a burst CAM-release and a high absorption capacity. Nanofibers with all active ingredients (βG, CHI and CAM) showed a concentration-dependent anti-inflammatory activity, while maintaining the antimicrobial activity of CAM. The promising anti-inflammatory properties, together with the high absorption capacity and antimicrobial effect, make these multifunctional nanofibers promising as dressings in local treatment of infected and exuding wounds, such as burn wounds.