Konjac glucomannan/polyvinyl alcohol nanofibers with enhanced skin healing properties by improving fibrinogen adsorption

Skin tissue engineering aims to develop the effective healing strategy to repair the wound by optimizing skin scaffold materials. During the skin wound healing process, fibrin plays an important role due to the specific blood coagulation effect. In this study, the outstanding fibrin capability of konjac glucomannan (KGM) is demonstrated by the molecular dynamics simulation and confirmed by the protein adsorption experiments. A series of konjac glucomannan/polyvinyl alcohol (KGM/PVA) composites with different ratio are fabricated and their role in enhancing the skin repair is tested by in vitro cell culture and in vivo study. The E_ads (adsorption energy) between fibrin and KGM is about 30% larger than that between fibrin and PVA. The fibrinogen adsorption rates of PVA and KGM/PVA (5:5) composites can reach about 20% and 60%, respectively. The results show the blood adsorption capacity of KGM/PVA (5:5) composite can reach about 13 g/g. After 7 days of cell culture, the optical density values of 3T3 fibroblasts on KGM/PVA (5:5) composite could reach 0.8. The mechanical properties of the composites are also verified to meet the practical needs. Thus, we propose a potential wound dressing material strategy based on the materials design and the intrinsic properties of KGM.