Encapsulation and Characterization of Gentamicin Sulfate in the Collagen Added Electrospun Nanofibers for Skin Regeneration

Abstract

In the current practice, the clinical use of conventional skin substitutes such as autogenous skin grafts have shown several problems, mainly with respect to limited sources and donor site morbidity. In order to overcome these limitations, the use of smart synthetic biomaterials is tremendously diffusing as skin substitutes. Indeed, engineered skin grafts or analogues frequently play an important role in the treatment of chronic skin wounds, by supporting the regeneration of newly formed tissue, and at the same time preventing infections during the long-term treatment. In this context, natural proteins such as collagen—natively present in the skin tissue—embedded in synthetic polymers (i.e., PCL) allow the development of micro-structured matrices able to mimic the functions and to structure of the surrounding extracellular matrix. Moreover, the encapsulation of drugs, such as gentamicin sulfate, also improves the bioactivity of nanofibers, due to the efficient loading and a controlled drug release towards the site of interest. Herein, we have done a preliminary investigation on the capability of gentamicin sulfate, loaded into collagen-added nanofibers, for the controlled release in local infection treatments. Experimental studies have demonstrated that collagen added fibers can be efficaciously used to administrate gentamicin for 72 h without any toxic in vitro response, thus emerging as a valid candidate for the therapeutic treatment of infected wounds.

Highly polydisperse keratin rich nanofibers: Scaffold design and in vitro characterization

“…1 However, the inability to preserve the typical crystalline triple-helical structure after the processing, often negatively affected the biocompatibility of the protein in vitro and in vivo, due to a reduction of biological as well as biomechanical properties. In order to overcome these limitations, collagen or its denatured protein-that is, gelatin-have been used in the crosslinking form, 2 or in combination with biodegradable polymers including poly(lactic acid), 3,4 poly(glycolic acid) 5 and their copolymer poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA), 6 and poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) 7,8 to improve the in vitro and in vivo biomechanical stability. 9,10 In this context, alternative proteins have been more recently tested alone or in combination with other polymers to design protein-based fibrous scaffolds with peculiar functionalities for tissue engineering applications.…”

Polymeric Electrospun Fibrous Dressings for Topical Co-delivery of Acyclovir and Omega-3 Fatty Acids

“…In the last years, polymeric fibrous matrices have gained more interest in the academic and industrial fields, in particular in biomedical sciences, as drug delivery systems for the incorporation of drugs (Hu et al, 2015; Khodir et al, 2018) and other bioactive compounds (Hu et al, 2016; Pinese et al, 2018). These systems can be used for the sustained release of drugs and can improve their therapeutic performance.…”

Topographical and Biomechanical Guidance of Electrospun Fibers for Biomedical Applications

“…More recently, the effect of nanofibers alignment was investigated in in vitro cultures of differentiated cells cardiomyocytes, fibroblasts and cortical neurons [28][29][30]. In terms of cytotoxicity and cell proliferation, it was remarked all phenotypes exhibited good cell attachment, spreading and cell body alignment along the fiber's axes.…”