Commensal Engineered Living Materials for Sustained Secretome Delivery and Wound Healing

Encapsulating the pro-healing human wound isolate Alcaligenes faecalis in click-reactive PEG hydrogels enables sustained secretome release over weeks in murine diabetic wounds.

• Why it matters: Chronic non-healing wounds are difficult to treat because therapeutics must work within an inflammatory microenvironment, and direct live-microbe application is constrained by safety and engraftment risks.
• What they did: The study built commensal Engineered Living Materials using thiol- or vinyl-sulfone-functionalized multi-arm poly(ethylene glycol) hydrogels, varying polymer network and encapsulated bacteria density to derive design rules.
• The result: In a murine diabetic wound model, the Alcaligenes faecalis cELMs maintained biocontainment, shielded bacteria from host clearance, accelerated re-epithelialization, and improved wound bed maturity.

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