Smart nano-in-microparticles to tackle bacterial infections in skin tissue engineering Ruggeri, Marco Sánchez Espejo, Rita María Viseras Alarcón, César Wound healing Maltodextrin Dextran Amino acids Metal oxide nanoparticles Microparticles Antimicrobial properties Chronic wounds (resulting from underlying disease, metabolic disorders, infections, trauma, and even tumours) pose significant health problems. In this work, microparticles, based on polysaccharides (maltodextrin or dextran) and amino acids, and doped with antibacterial nanoparticles (CuO or ZnO NPs) are designed. Smart nano-inmicroparticles with a hierarchical 3D structure are developed. The ultimate goal aims at an innovative platform to achieve skin repair and to manage skin colonization by avoiding infection that could delay and even impair the healing process. The microparticles are prepared by spray-drying and cross-linked by heating, to obtain insoluble scaffolds able to facilitate cell proliferation in the wound bed. The nano-in-microparticles are characterized using a multidisciplinary approach: chemico–physical properties (SEM, SEM-EDX, size distribution, swelling and degradation properties, structural characterization - FTIR, XRPD, SAXS – mechanical properties, surface zeta potential) and preclinical properties (in vitro biocompatibility and whole-blood clotting properties, release studies and antimicrobial properties, and in vivo safety and efficacy on murine burn/excisional wound model) were assessed. The hierarchical 3D nano-in microparticles demonstrate to promote skin tissue repair in a preclinical study, indicating that this platform deserves particular attention and further investigation will promote the prototypes translation to clinics. 2022-12-07T08:56:02Z 2022-12-07T08:56:02Z 2022-09-07 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Marco Ruggeri... [et al.]. Smart nano-in-microparticles to tackle bacterial infections in skin tissue engineering, Materials Today Bio, Volume 16, 2022, 100418, ISSN 2590-0064, [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mtbio.2022.100418] https://hdl.handle.net/10481/78325 10.1016/j.mtbio.2022.100418 eng info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/814607 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional Elsevier