The controlled release of growth factor via modified coaxial electrospun fibres with emulsion or hydrogel as the core

• Coaxial electrospun fibres are modified with emulsion or hydrogel as the core.
• Modified fibres appear various release behaviors for growth factors delivery.
• The release profiles are modulated by the degradation of fibres with different cores.

Because of the biomimetic structure and bioactivity preservation, coaxial electrospinning was applied to prepare fibrous scaffolds for delivery growth factors. In this investigation, the coaxial electrospinning technique was modified with emulsion or chitosan hydrogel as the core, to control the release of basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF). Compared with the conventional coaxial electrospun sample, the emulsion-core coaxial electrospun samples reduced the release amount to around 25% in the first stage, while the hydrogel-core coaxial electrospun sample increased to 63.59% in the first 7 days; and the bFGF cumulative release of all the improved coaxial electrospun samples could achieve about 90%, which was much higher than the control sample (59.89%). Though the appropriate components in the core and the degradation degree of fibres, the modified coaxial electrospun membranes could modulate the release behavior of growth factors following the desired rate and amount, which is beneficial to regeneration of several tissue types.