Fig. 5: Anti-bacterial restorative efficacy against S. aureus-infected diabetic wound.

a Schematic diagram of the study design on S. aureus-infected diabetic wound model. b Representative photographs of S. aureus-infected diabetic wounds from day 0 to day 14 in different groups (Scale bar, 5 mm). c Traces of wound closure from day 0 to day 14 in different groups. d Relative wound closure rates of rats after different interventions (n = 5 rats per group). e, f Bacterial colonies (e) and survival rates (f) of S. aureus-infected wounds on days 7 and 14 in each group (Scale bar, 10 mm). g Representative images of H&E staining of rat skin tissue (Scale bar, 300 µm (top) and 80 μm (enlarged)). h Representative images of Masson staining of rat skin tissue (Scale bar, 80 μm). i, j Quantitative analysis of granulation tissue width (i) and epithelial thickness (j) from rat skin tissue H&E staining. k Quantitative analysis of collagen deposition from rat skin tissue after different interventions. l Representative IF staining images of CD86 (red) and CD206 (green) in diabetic wounds of different groups on day 14 (Scale bar, 80 μm). m Quantitative analysis of M2/M1 macrophages in diabetic wounds of different groups on day 14. n–p ELISA analysis of TNF-α (n), IL-10 (o) and IL-6 (p) from the wound tissue lysates extracted at day 14 after treatment. G1, Control; G2, LIFU; G3, Gel; G4, BT@Gel; G5, BT@Gel+LIFU; G6, BT-dNO@Gel+LIFU. Data were presented as mean ± SD (n = 3 rats per group). Statistical significance was determined using a one-way ANOVA test followed by Tukey’s multiple comparison analysis. ns, not significant, *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001 and ****P < 0.0001. Source data are provided as a Source Data file. Elements in (a) were created using templates from BioRender. Li, X. (2026) https://BioRender.com/vfilyre.