Influence of nanofiber alignment on the release of a water-soluble drug from cellulose acetate nanofibers

Abstract

Cellulose acetate nanofibers with different degrees of alignment (randomly aligned (RA), partially aligned (PA), and highly aligned (HA)) were produced using an electrospinning technique. The different degrees of alignment were obtained by adjusting the rotation speed of the collector. Alpha-arbutin (3% w/w) employed as a model water-soluble compound was incorporated into the nanofibers during the fabrication process. The drug release characteristics were investigated using the nanofiber mats with the same size and weight. The prepared nanofibers with different degrees of alignment showed similar physical characteristics, including the fiber diameter, drug loading efficiency and capacity, and molecular form of the drug in the fibers. Interestingly, alpha-arbutin was released from HA nanofibers at a significantly faster rate than the PA and RA nanofibers. Eighty percent of the drug was released into the medium in 1.7, 4.2, and 9.4 min for HA, PA, and RA nanofibers, respectively. The orientation of nanofibers played a crucial role in governing the drug release, probably by creating network meshes with different degrees of entanglement, affecting the diffusion of drug to the external medium. Consequently, this approach can be used as a simple means of achieving immediate-release or fast-acting characteristics of cellulose-based formulations containing a water-soluble drug.

Electrospun progesterone‐loaded cellulose acetate nanofibers and their drug sustained‐release profiles

“…[13] Thus, morphology plays a key role in drug release kinetics, since, besides fiber influence, higher porosity and loading contributes to faster release, and the beads on nanofibers may act as drug reservoirs. [6,18,41,[43][44][45][46][47][48] Also, if there is an uneven drug distribution in the solution, or the drug is located around the nanofiber surface, defects, and initial burst release of the drug followed by diffusion may be observed. [6,13] In general, biodegradable or swellable polymers are employed in nanofibers form as drug carriers, [7] and natural hydrophilic polymers exhibit better biocompatibility and low immunogenicity making them appropriate candidates for biological applications.…”

“…Some recent publications about electrospun CA nanofibers have demonstrated the drug sustained-release profiles in different manners such as trilayer nanofibers, [56] drug depots, [41,57] and by micropatterned induced surface hydrophobicity. [58] The faster release profile of Alpha-arbutin (hydrophilic drug) was achieved with highly aligned CA nanofibers by Patrojanasophon et al [47] According to the authors, the organized arrangement along with the lower degree of entanglements facilitated the drug diffusion from the nanofibers. [47] A tunable sustained release of ibuprofen studied by Yang et al [59] was attributed to the presence of CA coating, which was responsible to eradicate initial burst release.…”

“…[58] The faster release profile of Alpha-arbutin (hydrophilic drug) was achieved with highly aligned CA nanofibers by Patrojanasophon et al [47] According to the authors, the organized arrangement along with the lower degree of entanglements facilitated the drug diffusion from the nanofibers. [47] A tunable sustained release of ibuprofen studied by Yang et al [59] was attributed to the presence of CA coating, which was responsible to eradicate initial burst release. CA displays great promising in the form of nanofibers as carriers of a variety of drugs, [51] and other biomedical applications, such as tissue engineering, [55] sensors for biomolecules, [60] and wound dressings (as recently proposed by Dos Santos et al [29] ).…”

Fabrication of Drug-Eluting Polycaprolactone/poly(lactic-co-glycolic Acid) Prolapse Mats Using Solution-Extrusion 3D Printing and Coaxial Electrospinning Techniques

“…They found that the entrapment efficiency of metronidazole in the nanofiber mats was 82–99% and at least 30% of metronidazole was released in the initial period followed by a sustained-release for up to 7 days. To further prolong the sustained release of loaded pharmaceuticals in the PLGA mats, a higher drug loading, a greater polymer-to-drug ratio, a polymer of higher molecular weight [ 37 ], and/or a highly aligned fiber structure [ 38 ] may be adopted. On the other hand, owing to the shielding influence of the shell PLGA layer, the initial burst of CTGF from the sheath-core-structured nanofibers was not observed.…”

Antifouling Performance of Cellulose Acetate Films Based on a New Benzoxazine Derivative

“…However, it has some drawbacks that include poor thermal stability, weak chemical resistance, and inferior mechanical performance. Hence, the polysaccharide is modified with nanoparticle, [18] other polymers, [19,20] and fibres, [21] to improve their application potentialities. Some of the modified cellulose acetate were studied for their antimicrobial activity, [22,23] heavy metal extraction, [24,25] drug delivery, [26] tissue engineering, [27] wound dressing, [28] water treatment technology, [29] waterborne coating, [30] and antifouling coating [30,31] .…”