Multifunctional collagen hydrogel accelerates infected wound repair through photothermal disinfection and pro-angiogenic activity.

As the primary physical and immunological barrier against external insults, skin integrity is frequently compromised by trauma, disease, or iatrogenic injury, leading to pathogenic microorganism invasion and infected wounds. The escalating challenges posed by bacterial antibiotic resistance and biofilm formation highlight the urgent need for therapeutic systems that synergistically combine potent antibacterial efficacy with effective tissue regeneration modulation. Therefore, this study developed a multifunctional hydrogel platform integrating rapid photothermal sterilization and pro-regenerative bioactivity. We engineered an aggregation-induced emission (AIE) nanoparticle-loaded type I recombinant humanized collagen hydrogel (AIE@RHCI), achieving rapid UV-triggered crosslinking from liquid to gel state. The hydrogel demonstrates appropriate swelling capacity, controllable degradation kinetics, and favorable mechanical properties, enabling stable adhesion to dynamically deforming skin during movement. The incorporated AIE component exhibits 39.7 % photothermal conversion efficiency under 808 nm near-infrared (NIR) irradiation. In vitro studies confirmed that the AIE@RHCI hydrogel under NIR irradiation reduced methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) viability to 22.2 %, while concurrently achieving 79.8 % biofilm inhibition. Simultaneously, the recombinant collagen matrix promotes vascular endothelial cell migration and accelerates vascularization, with significant upregulation of key pro-angiogenic genes VEGF and CD31. This integrated platform synergistically combines photothermal bactericidal nanoparticles with bioactive recombinant collagen scaffolding, offering a novel and promising therapeutic strategy for the management of antibiotic-resistant wound infections, with potential for clinical translation in chronic and infected wound care.