Evaluation of Wound Healing and Antimicrobial Properties of Bacterial Cellulose Containing B.subtilis Cells

Abstract

Bacterial cellulose (BC) is a gel matrix substance made of various gram negative bacteria in a sugar rich environment, and has been used in many pharmaceutical and medical industries. One of the functions of BC is as a wound dressing, which according to some studies, BC has a potential to make wound healing more efficient. Due to this reason, this research aims to evaluate the wound healing and antimicrobial properties of BC that has been injected with a probiotics (B.subtilis). The research was done by using 8 male mice that were treated with 3 different treatments, which are BC B.subtilis, BCO (BC Only), and negative control (Gauze). After the wound is observed for a specific amount of time, the tissue is extracted, embedded, sectioned, stained using hematoxylin and eosin, and observed using a light microscope. The BC B.subtilis showed a significant wound size reduction compared to BCO and negative control (p<0.05). However, there is no significant wound size reduction between BCO and negative control (p>0.05). In addition to that, BC B.subtilis showed a more prominent re-epithelialization, which can be concluded that BC has a potential to be used as a wound dressing, as it increase the wound healing rate, and the addition of probiotics are recommended to increase the wound healing even further.