Bioactive gauze uses an enzyme to break wound biofilms without killing bacteria

Researchers immobilized a polysaccharide-digesting enzyme on hospital-grade gauze to disrupt Acinetobacter biofilms and help infected wounds heal in mice.

Editorial illustration — not from the study.

Biofilms are protective bacterial communities that can make wound infections harder to treat. Rather than using a bactericidal approach, the researchers focused on dismantling the biofilm’s supporting matrix—the material that holds the community together.

They identified and characterized CRhAB, a polysaccharide-degrading enzyme that selectively erodes the extracellular biofilm matrix. When the enzyme was covalently immobilized onto clinical-grade gauze, the dressing retained enzymatic activity, reduced bacterial colonization, and accelerated wound healing in a mouse infection model.

What the enzyme and gauze did

- The researchers identified CRhAB, a previously uncharacterized polysaccharide-degrading enzyme from Acinetobacter baumannii, that selectively erodes the extracellular biofilm matrix. - Enzymatic matrix degradation inhibited biofilm formation and rapidly disrupted mature biofilms under biocompatible conditions. - The matrix disruption restored immune access, increasing macrophage infiltration and enhancing phagocytic clearance without directly affecting bacterial viability. - Covalently immobilizing CRhAB onto clinical-grade gauze produced a stable dressing that retained enzymatic function. - In a murine infection model, the enzyme-functionalized gauze suppressed bacterial colonization and accelerated wound healing.

Why disrupting biofilm structure matters

Wound biofilms can shield bacteria from immune defenses and treatments. This work describes an enzyme-based dressing strategy that targets the biofilm’s structure in a resistance-agnostic way—aiming to disrupt the protective matrix and help immune cells clear infections without directly killing bacteria.

Evidence and limits

The evidence comes from laboratory characterization of the enzyme’s activity on biofilms and from testing the enzyme-functionalized gauze in a murine infection model using Acinetobacter baumannii. Limitations include that the abstract does not provide details on how broadly the approach works across different pathogens or wound types, and it does not describe how results would translate to humans or compare with standard-of-care treatments.

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