The applications of protein electrospinning in wound healing, tissue engineering and drug delivery.

Electrospinning technologies (e.g traditional electrospinning and near-field electrospinning) have been widely considered for the design of biomimetic scaffolds for tissue engineering and wound healing. The great advantage of electrospinning technologies lies in the possibility of controlling the surface area, porosity and pore size of the final materials as well as the loading and the release kinetics of the drugs. In addition, the processing of proteins by electrospinning technologies is a promising approach to design functional scaffolds offering better bioctivity (ability to support cell adhesion and growth), better drug stability and safer applicability on skin. In this work, keratin proteins of mammal origin, obtained from wool wastes were processed into electrospun mats. In particular, electrospun mats made of keratin nanofibers, keratin/hydrotalcites hybrid nanofibers and keratin/poly(butylene succinate) blend nanofibers, loaded with diclofenac were compared as drug delivery systems and scaffolds for cell growth. All the electrospun mats are characterized by layers of interconnected web of nanofibers having a mean diameter of about 200 nm. They are able to adhere to wet skin to support fibroblast cells adhesion and growth. The diclofenac is almost totally released from the keratin nanofibers through a matrix swelling controlled mechanism and from keratin/hydrotalcites hybrid nanofibers through a totally Fickian diffusion mechanism. Instead, only the 50% of drug is released from the keratin/PBS blend nanofibers through a totally Fickian diffusion mechanism. These preliminary obtained results can be exploited to design functional patches with desired bioactivity and drug release profiles through an additive electrospinning process, to be applied in tissue engineering and wound healing. Moreover, the use of a chemical sensors in addition to drugs could be a promising strategy to develop functional patches acting as drug delivery and sensors systems.