Peng F, Li YY, Tang Y, Sun SX, Zhu YQ, Zhang XY, Zhu HZ. Nicotinamide mononucleotide-loaded thermosensitive hydrogel promotes diabetic wound healing via antibacterial and antioxidant synergy in a mouse model. World J Diabetes 2026; 17(7): 119741 [DOI: 10.4239/wjd.119741]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Huan-Zhang Zhu, Academic Fellow, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, No. 2005 Songhu Road, Xinjiangwancheng Street, Yangpu District, Shanghai 200433, China. hzzhu@fudan.edu.cn
Research Domain of This Article
Endocrinology & Metabolism
Article-Type of This Article
research-article
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Baishideng Publishing Group Inc, 7041 Koll Center Parkway, Suite 160, Pleasanton, CA 94566, USA
Share the Article
Peng F, Li YY, Tang Y, Sun SX, Zhu YQ, Zhang XY, Zhu HZ. Nicotinamide mononucleotide-loaded thermosensitive hydrogel promotes diabetic wound healing via antibacterial and antioxidant synergy in a mouse model. World J Diabetes 2026; 17(7): 119741 [DOI: 10.4239/wjd.119741]
Fei Peng, Yuan Tang, Yu-Qi Zhu, Huan-Zhang Zhu, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
Yang-Yang Li, Shang-Xue Sun, Department of Nursing, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Naval Medical University, Shanghai 200003, China
Xin-Yin Zhang, Department of Nursing, Naval Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China
Co-first authors: Fei Peng and Yang-Yang Li.
Author contributions: Peng F and Li YY were responsible for methodology, investigation, formal analysis, writing-original draft, equally contributed as co-first authors; Tang Y, Sun SX, Zhu YQ, and Zhang XY were responsible for investigation and resources; Zhu HZ was responsible for conceptualization, supervision, writing-review and editing; all authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
AI contribution statement: We used AI as a writing assistant for polishing and basic rephrasing of the response letter. All scientific content, experimental data, technical explanations, and specific revisions (title change, abstract edits, new paragraphs in Discussion) were written by us. AI never wrote any scientific arguments or data.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: All experiments were conducted following the Chinese Guidelines for Animal Research and were approved by the Ethics Review Committee of Fudan University (No. 2021JS0082).
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare no conflict of interest in publishing the manuscript.
ARRIVE guidelines statement: The authors have read the ARRIVE guidelines, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the ARRIVE guidelines.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Corresponding author: Huan-Zhang Zhu, Academic Fellow, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, No. 2005 Songhu Road, Xinjiangwancheng Street, Yangpu District, Shanghai 200433, China. hzzhu@fudan.edu.cn
Received: February 10, 2026 Revised: April 1, 2026 Accepted: May 18, 2026 Published online: July 15, 2026 Processing time: 148 Days and 22.4 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Diabetic ulcer is a prevalent chronic refractory wound and a severe complication of diabetes that drastically undermines patients’ quality of life and causes heavy economic burdens. Local dressing therapy is a core diabetic ulcer intervention, but existing functional hydrogel dressings are plagued by single-target action and insufficient antioxidant components and have become key bottlenecks in dressing research and development.
AIM
To develop a novel thermosensitive composite hydrogel dressing that overcomes the limitations of existing hydrogel dressings for effective diabetic ulcer management.
METHODS
A thermosensitive composite hydrogel [PF/polyhexamethylene biguanide (PHMB)-nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN)] was successfully fabricated by integrating NMN, which is a potent antioxidant, as the functional ingredient with Pluronic F127 and PHMB, an antibacterial agent. In this preclinical study, the effect of this hydrogel in the treatment of diabetic wounds was evaluated by both in vitro and in vivo experiments.
RESULTS
The PF/PHMB-NMN hydrogel possessed excellent sustained drug release, antibacterial and antioxidant properties; in vitro experiments confirmed that the hydrogel could effectively inhibit bacteria, promote cell migration and angiogenesis. In mouse models, the NMN-loaded hydrogel significantly accelerated diabetic wound healing, with upregulated expression levels of vascular endothelial growth factor and transforming growth factor-β1.
CONCLUSION
The NMN-PHMB-loaded Pluronic F127 thermosensitive composite hydrogel safely and effectively facilitates diabetic wound healing in a mouse model, offering a potential therapeutic strategy and promising a candidate dressing for further investigation in clinical diabetic foot ulcer management.
Core Tip: In this study, a thermosensitive Pluronic F127/polyhexamethylene biguanide composite hydrogel loaded with antioxidant nicotinamide mononucleotide was prepared, which showed sustained strong antibacterial and antioxidant properties and favorable biosafety. In vitro, hydrogel inhibited bacteria, and boosted cell migration and angiogenesis. In mouse models, it markedly accelerated diabetic ulcer healing via faster re-epithelialization, reduced inflammation, elevated collagen deposition and angiogenesis, as well as upregulating vascular endothelial growth factor and transforming growth factor-β1. This hydrogel is a safe, effective novel dressing for clinical diabetic ulcer treatment.
