Study of Biocompatibility and Cell proliferation on Microalgal Polyhydroxy Butyrate (PHB) Fibrous Structures for Wound Healing Applications

摘要

Polyhydroxy butyrate (PHB) is a polyester of hydroxyalkanoic acids (HAs) and is commonly biosynthesized by microorganisms such as bacteria, microalgae (cyanobacteria) and fungi as an intracellular carbon reserve and is accumulated as granules in cytoplasm as a mechanism to overcome environmental stress. Since it is an enzymatically biodegradable and biocompatible material, PHB has attracted attention in diverse applications especially in tissue engineering applications in the form of fibrous substrates. Bacterial fermentation routes are usually recruited to produce PHAs in large scale commercial settings but high costs of energy and raw materials that are incurred during the process are proving to be expensive. Thus in an initiative to reduce the rising costs, the use of autotrophic microorganisms such as cyanobacteria are being currently explored. The current pilot study describes the extraction and characterization of the biosynthesized PHB in two oxygenic diazotrophic cyanobacterial species- Anabaena variabilis and Anabaena flos aquae and the electrospinning of nano-fibrous meshes from the extracted polymer thereafter. The results suggested that the A. variabilis culture produced ～14.35% and A. flos aquae culture produced ～16.36% PHB (based on dry cellular weight) in a 10 day and 12 day incubation period respectively. The confirmation of adequate cellular adherence to the polymer fibrous substrates and proliferation proves the feasibility for use in biomedical applications such as wound healing and tissue engineering.