Journal Article

Pyomelanin-like polymers accelerate the infectious wound healing

Li, Maoyun, Yang, Lei, Wu, Bo, Huang, Tiande, Wang, Tianyou, Zhang, Jianhua, Chen, Daibo, Gu, Zhipeng, Li, Yiwen

2026

Overview

Melanin is widely present in nature and plays vital roles in many physiological processes, and melanin-inspired materials with similar structures and properties have attracted increasing attention in recent years. Although several cases of eumelanin and allomelanin-like polymers have been well documented, there is limited attention given to pyomelanin analogues, a kind of brownish melanin pigments from bacteria and fungi. Herein, a facile and robust strategy has been proposed to fabricate pyomelanin-like nanomaterials with controllable morphologies and uniform sizes via the direct accelerated oxidative polymerization of the monomer homogentisic acid. Additionally, the typical properties of the resulting pyomelanin-like nanoparticles, including photothermal effects, antioxidative abilities, and intracellular biocompatibility were carefully demonstrated, and the infectious wound model was established to confirm their promising therapeutic effects in vivo. This work proposes an innovative approach to fabricate new type of melanin-like polymers with great potential in the biomedical field. Facile synthesis of pyomelanin-like polymers enables synergistic photothermal antibacterial and antioxidative therapy for accelerated infected wound healing. [Display omitted]

• Publisher: Elsevier B.V
• Subject: Antioxidation / Nanomaterials / Photothermal effects / Pyomelanin / Wound healing