A Facile Strategy for Fabrication Lysozyme-Loaded Mesoporous Silica Nanotubes from Electrospun Silk Fibroin Nanofiber Templates

Abstract

This paper presents a facile and low-cost strategy for fabrication lysozyme-loaded mesoporous silica nanotubes (MSNTs) by using silk fibroin (SF) nanofiber templates. The “top-down method” was adopted to dissolve degummed silk in CaCl2/ formic acid (FA) solvent, and the solution containing SF nanofibrils was used for electrospinning to prepare SF nanofiber templates. As SF contains a large number of -OH, -NH2 and -COOH groups, the silica layer could be easily formed on its surface by the Söber sol-gel method without adding any surfactant or coupling agent. After calcination, the MSNTs were obtained with inner diameters about 200 nm, the wall thickness ranges from 37 ± 2 nm to 66 ± 3 nm and the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) specific surface area was up to 200.48 m2/g, the pore volume was 1.109 cm3/g. By loading lysozyme, the MSNTs exhibited relatively high drug encapsulation efficiency up to 31.82% and an excellent long-term sustained release in 360 h (15 days). These results suggest that the MSNTs with the hierarchical structure of mesoporous and macroporous will be a promising carrier for applications in biomacromolecular drug delivery systems.

Silk Fibroin Combined with Electrospinning as a Promising Strategy for Tissue Regeneration

“…[ 30 ] The degummed fibroin retains the structure of its large filamentous fibers and is commonly dissolved in a lithium bromide solution or a calcium chloride/ethanol/water ternary solvent. [ 31 ] The dissolved SF is then eliminated from the salt solution by dialysis to form a regenerated SF aqueous solution. [ 32 ] Some studies have directly prepared tissue engineering scaffolds utilizing SF aqueous solution.…”

Silica‐based Nanoparticles for Enzyme Immobilization and Delivery

“…Zhu et al reported a facile strategy for lysozyme immobilization and delivery using mesoporous silica nanotubes from electrospun silk fibroin nanofiber templates. [36] They obtained mesoporous silica nanotubes with inner diameters about 200 nm and wall thickness ranged from 37 � 2 nm to 66 � 3 nm, which achieved a high lysozyme loading (up to 31.82%) and long-term sustained release for 15 days. Wang et al used dendritic mesoporous silica nanoparticles for lysozyme delivery and studied the relationship between the particle size/pore size and antibacterial activity of the delivered enzyme.…”

“…Zhu et al. reported a facile strategy for lysozyme immobilization and delivery using mesoporous silica nanotubes from electrospun silk fibroin nanofiber templates [36] . They obtained mesoporous silica nanotubes with inner diameters about 200 nm and wall thickness ranged from 37±2 nm to 66±3 nm, which achieved a high lysozyme loading (up to 31.82%) and long‐term sustained release for 15 days.…”

Release Profiles of Carvacrol or Chlorhexidine of PLA/Graphene Nanoplatelets Membranes Prepared Using Electrospinning and Solution Blow Spinning: A Comparative Study

“…SBS, however, presents some limits in regard to drugs encapsulation within nanofibers. In particular, during nanofibers production, liquid and solid drugs both emerge on the fibers surface due to the high evaporation rate of the solvent during the process [ 24 , 26 ], thus preventing the possibility of slowing down the release kinetics and obtaining a sustained release over time [ 27 , 28 , 29 ]. Considering that the correct encapsulation of liquid and solid drugs is crucial for achieving their controlled release, but also that appropriate production time and cost are essential for industrial scalability, it could be an interesting challenge to evaluate the existing difference, to form the production to the application, of the same drug delivery systems produced for ES or SBS.…”