Advances in Hydrogel - Mesenchymal Stem Cells Composites for Accelerating Burn Wound Repair

Burn wounds (BWs) are common severe clinical traumas prone to life-threatening complications like infections and sepsis, often causing permanent scarring and skin dysfunction that severely impact quality of life, remaining a major challenge in trauma treatment. As promising biomaterials, hydrogels are widely used in tissue engineering for their excellent biocompatibility, controllable degradability, high water content, and 3D porous structure. They mimic the extracellular matrix (ECM) to support cell growth and efficiently load/sustainably release bioactive components such as mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Isolated from bone marrow, adipose tissue, etc., MSCs have multi- lineage differentiation potential, low immunogenicity, and robust paracrine function, accelerating wound healing via regulating inflammation, promoting angiogenesis, and facilitating tissue repair. In recent years, the combined application of hydrogels and MSCs has become a research hotspot in BW repair, with synergistic effects overcoming limitations of single therapies (e.g., low MSCs survival in harsh wound microenvironments) and improving healing efficiency/quality. This review summarizes BWs healing processes and pathological characteristics, outlines hydrogel/MSCs biological properties and optimization strategies, and highlights their combined research progress and application status, providing references for precise clinical treatment of BWs.