Nanofibrous Delivery Vehicles for Drugs and Biomolecules: Emulsion Electrospinning vs. Conventional Electrospinning

摘要

Electrospinning has been widely used for tissue engineering scaffold fabrication because electrospun nanofibrous structures resemble extracellular matrix of body tissues. Drugs/biomolecules may also be incorporated in the fibers for local and sustained delivery. Most drugs such as hydrophobic antibotics can be incorporated in fibers relatively easily. But water soluble drugs and biomolecule could not be dispersed uniformly in polymer solutions, resulting in their poor distribution in fibers and severe burst release. Emulsion electrospinning may be used to solve the problems. In this investigation, nanofibrous delivery vehicles were constructed using conventional electrospinning and emulsion electrospinning. Bovine serum albumin (BSA), a model protein, and vancomycin, a water-soluble hydrophilic drug, were model biomolecule and drug. The delivery systems were subsequently studied using various techniques. The in vitro release bahaviours of BSA and vancomycin were compared.