In vivo assessment of the durable, green and in situ bio-functional cotton fabrics based carboxymethyl chitosan nanohybrid for wound healing application.

Herein, a newly developed approach for durable antibacterial cotton fabrics coated carboxymethyl chitosan (CMCs) via ionic crosslinking driven by cationization of cotton surface (CC) with 3-chloro-2-hydroxyl propyl-trimethyl ammonium chloride (CHTAC) was achieved. In this regard, the novelty was extended to impart a highly antibacterial activity through harnessing of the as-functionalized CMCs/CC for in situ preparation of AgNPs, without using of hazardous reductants. The antibacterial activity of the in situ prepared AgNPs onto CMCs/CC as well as the in vivo study on the rat lab were investigated to evaluate their healing efficiency, pathological tissues and biomarkers. Results affirmed that the treatment of CC with 10% of CMCs was adequate to achieve the highest swelling ratio which, in turns, is able to in situ deposition of AgNPs with a size range of 2-10 nm onto CC/CMCs rendering them a highly durable antibacterial activity against both Gram +Ve and Gram -Ve bacteria, which had a bacterial reduction of 98% to 86% after 20 washing cycles. Furthermore, the in vivo study revealed effectively the advantageous uses of the cotton functionalized with AgNPs compared to CC/CMCs in wound healing via alleviating the oxidative stress and promoting hyaluronic acid in wounded skin as well as increasing RUNX2 in healed skin tissues.