Single and multi-dose drug loaded electrospun fiber mats for wound healing applications

The unique properties of electrospun fibers have received significant attention from the scientific community as suitable candidates for biomedical engineering and drug delivery applications. Their morphological similarity to the extracellular matrix fits the purpose of wound healing by providing a scaffold for cell proliferation while acting as a drug delivery system. One challenge to this drug delivery system's commercialization is the electrospun fiber mat consistency. Reproducibility and accuracy, as well as a large production volume to meet the market demand, should be handled effectively. In this study, we addressed this challenge by optimizing the fabrication method for single and multi-dose production by using flat and drum collectors, respectively. Polycaprolactone was used as a biodegradable polymer to produce fiber structure, and melatonin was used to promote wound healing. Melatonin-loaded polycaprolactone fiber mats were successfully fabricated with RSD values of 0.82% (diameter) and %1.94% (width) using flat and drum collectors, respectively. In addition, functionalized polycaprolactone fiber mats were prepared using peptide fragments, named FnIII9*10, that have both Synergy and RGD sides of fibronectin, with a binding efficiency of 53.9% to the blank PCL fiber mats. The proliferative dose of melatonin was found as 125 mu M and 250 mu M for MRC-5 lung fibroblast cells. The biocompatibility of the fiber mats was studied with BJ skin fibroblast, and HACAT immortalized human keratinocytes. Melatonin-loaded polycaprolactone fiber mats showed increased cell viability values of 178% and 141% for both cell lines. The presented study shows the potential of the commercialization of electrospun fiber mats and gets us one step closer to seeing new-generation wound healing products in the pharmaceutical industry.