Novel Natural Polymer/Medicinal Plant Extract Electrospun Nanofiber for Cosmeceutical Application

Abstract

Zein produced from maize is a hydrophobic protein, which holds great potential for a number of industrial applications, for example, food packaging, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and biomedical industry. Sorghum, known as important cereal crop worldwide, is a good source of various phytochemicals such as tannins, phenolic acids, anthocyanins, phytosterols, and policosanols, and these phytochemicals have great impact on human health. Poria cocos, a well-known traditional East-Asian medicinal plant, is found around the roots of pine trees in Korea and China. As a rapid and efficient process, electrospinning has drawn huge interest among scientists to produce nanostructured polymer materials with excellent properties. In this work, we studied the influence of co-solvent ratio and concentration of zein/medicinal plant extract on the morphologies of nanostructured zein/medicinal plant extract nanomaterials prepared by electrospinning technique from ethanol/water solution. The zein/medicinal extract nanofibers were characterized by field-emission scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, and differential scanning calorimetric technique. And we were to incorporate medicinal plant resources into the electro-spun zein nanofibers by electrospinning technique to investigate the effect of medicinal extract on the morphologies, antibacterial, antioxidant, and other properties. Zein/medicinal plant extract might have a practical use as a new preservative for cosmeceutical applications.

Status of Plant Protein-Based Green Scaffolds for Regenerative Medicine Applications

“…The findings from an antioxidant activity test showed that Quercetin /γ-CD-IC incorporated zein nanofibers presented quite high, efficient, and quick antioxidant activity [147]. Yeum et al reported important anti-bacterial activity of zein/ Sorghum extract nanofibers and enhanced antioxidant capacities of zein/ Poria cocos extract nanofibers compared to zein nanofibers only [148].…”

Biopolymer based three‐dimensional biomimetic micro/nanofibers scaffolds with porous structures via tailored charge repulsions for skin tissue regeneration

“…The plant‐based polymers such as proteins and carbohydrates are very promising for application in tissue engineering amongst a variety of biomaterials 27,28 . Zein (corn protein) is a prominently distinguished plant protein for scholars, due to its excellent biocompatibility, nonimmunogenicity, antioxidant, nontoxic, cell proliferation, and differentiation properties 29‐33 . Adding polysaccharides to zein is effective for it to mimic the ECM, which contains large amounts of glycoproteins or proteoglycans 34 .…”