Fabrication and Investigation of Electrospun Poly caprolactone /Gelatin/Egg white Nanofibers for Skin Tissue Engineering

Abstract

Abstract Nowadays, the use of green materials has been expanded for biomedical and bioengineering. Egg white (EW) is a low-cost and abundant candidate for various biomedical applications. In this study, a nanofibrous scaffold based on EW blended with polycaprolactone/gelatin (PCL/Gel) was fabricated using electrospinning. The fabricated samples were characterized using Physicochemical analyses including SEM, FT-IR spectroscopy, tensile assay, and contact angle measurement. The optimized samples were used as scaffolds for cell culture. The average diameter of prepared nanofibers measured 215.9 nm to 434.1 nm. The FT-IR and DSC assays showed the physical blending of EW with PCL/Gel was appropriate and there wasn’t a new chemical reaction between them. The contact angle test indicated the hydrophilicity of the scaffolds was decreased from 26.25º to 116.5º by increasing the EW amount in the PCL/Gel (0%-15%). Furthermore, the electrospun PCL/Gel nanofibrous mat with 10% EW exhibited better bioactivity than other samples with different amounts of EW. Therefore, adding 10% of EW to PCL/Gel nanofibers can improve the efficiency of fibroblast culture. This research introduced a nanofibrous scaffold for skin tissue engineering containing Gel and EW as low-cost and available materials that can be used for biological applications and also for productions like engineered leathers.