This article describes an electrospinning process to fabricate double-layered ultrafine fibers. A bioabsorbable polymer, Polycaprolactone (PCL), was used as the outer layer or the shell and two medically pure drugs, Resveratrol (RT, a kind of antioxidant) and Gentamycin Sulfate (GS, an antibiotic), were used as the inner layers or the cores. Morphology and microstructure of the ultrafine fibers were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM), whereas mechanical performance of them was understood through tensile test. In vitro degradation rates of the nanofibrous membranes were determined by measuring their weight loss when immersed in pH 7.4 phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) mixed with certain amount of Pseudomonas lipase for a maximum of 7 days. The drug release behaviors of the RT and GS were measured using a high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) spectroscopy, respectively. It has been found that the drug solutions without any fiber-forming additive could be encapsulated in the PCL ultrafine fibers, although they alone cannot be made into a fiber form. Beads on the fiber surface influenced the tensile behavior of the ultrafine fibers remarkably. When the core solvent was miscible with the shell solvent, higher drug concentration decreased the bead formation and thus favored the mechanical performance. The situation, however, became different if the two solvents were immiscible with each other. The degradation rate was closely related to hydrophilicity of the drugs in the cores. Higher hydrophilicity apparently led to faster degradation. The release profiles of the RT and GS exhibited a sustained release characteristic, with no burst release phenomenon.

Chitosan, a naturally occurring polysaccharide with abundant resources, has been extensively exploited for various biomedical applications, typically as wound dressings owing to its unique biocompatibility, good biodegradability and excellent antibacterial properties. In this work, composite nanofibrous membranes of chitosan (CS) and silk fibroin (SF) were successfully fabricated by electrospinning. The morphology of electrospun blend nanofibers was observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and the fiber diameters decreased with the increasing percentage of chitosan. Further, the mechanical test illustrated that the addition of silk fibroin enhanced the mechanical properties of CS/SF nanofibers. The antibacterial activities against Escherichia coli (Gram negative) and Staphylococcus aureus (Gram positive) were evaluated by the turbidity measurement method; and results suggest that the antibacterial effect of composite nanofibers varied on the type of bacteria. Furthermore, the biocompatibility of murine fibroblast on as-prepared nanofibrous membranes was investigated by hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining and MTT assays in vitro, and the membranes were found to promote the cell attachment and proliferation. These results suggest that as-prepared chitosan/silk fibroin (CS/SF) composite nanofibrous membranes could be a promising candidate for wound healing applications.

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We developed a straightforward, fast, and versatile technique to fabricate mineralized nanofibrous polymer scaffolds for bone regeneration in this work. Nanofibrous poly(l-lactic acid) scaffolds were fabricated using both electrospinning and phase separation techniques. An electrodeposition process was designed to deposit calcium phosphate on the nanofibrous scaffolds. Such scaffolds contain a high quality mineral coating on the fiber surface with tunable surface topography and chemical composition by varying the processing parameters, which can mimic the composition and structure of natural bone extracellular matrix and provide a more biocompatible interface for bone regeneration.