Controlled release of cefazolin sodium antibiotic drug from electrospun chitosan-polyethylene oxide nanofibrous Mats

- The cefazolin-loaded chitosan-polyethylene oxide nanofibrous mats were fabricated.
- The fibers diameters were decreased by addition of fumed silica NPs to the mats.
- The cefazolin release from the optimized mat was sharply increased within first 6 h.
- The hydrophilicity/tensile strength of the mat with drug-loaded silica was appropriate.
- CS-PEO-F. silica-cefazolin nearly completely healed the wounded skins of Wistar rats.

Antimicrobial electrospun chitosan-polyethylene oxide (CS-PEO) nanofibrous mats containing cefazolin, fumed silica (F. silica) and cefazolin-loaded fumed silica nanoparticles (NPs) were produced for biomedical applications. The FE-SEM images revealed that the F. silica and F. silica-cefazolin NPs had average diameters of 40 ± 10 and 60 ± 15 nm, respectively. Also, the fibers diameters were approximately 160 ± 30, 90 ± 20 and 70 ± 15 nm for the pure CS-PEO, CS-PEO-1% F. silica and CS-PEO-1% F. silica-0.5% cefazolin nanofibrous mats, respectively indicating addition of F. silica and cefazolin loaded F. silica NPs to the CS-PEO mat led to decreasing the nanofiber diameter. Both of the CS-PEO mats containing 2.5% cefazolin and 1% F. silica-0.50% cefazolin showed 100% bactericidal activities against both S. aureus and E. coli bacteria. The cefazolin release from mats was sharply increased within first 24 and 6 hours for the CS-PEO mats including 2.5% cefazolin and 1% F. silica-0.50% cefazolin but after that the drug was released very slowly. The improved hydrophilicity, higher tensile strength and sustained drug release for CS-PEO-1% F. silica-0.50% cefazolin suggested that it was the best nanocomposite tissue/device for biomedical applications among the mats CS-PEO-2.5% cefazolin and CS-PEO-1% F. silica. The wound healing ability of the CS-PEO-F. silica-cefazolin mat was evaluated on the wounded skins of the female Wistar rats and it was shown that the wounded skins of the rats were almost entirely healed after ten days using this mat as a wound dressing scaffold.

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