Morphological, antibacterial, and cell attachment of cellulose acetate nanofibers containing modified hydroxyapatite for wound healing utilizations

Abstract

Accelerating and improving the healing quality of wounded injuries required the development of new strategies for fully functional regeneration of skin tissues. In this work, electrospun nanofibrous scaffolds based on cellulose acetate (CA) encapsulated with modified hydroxyapatite (HAP) with different contents of Cu ions. It was shown from morphological features that prepared webs were formed in a non-oriented network with diameters around 1.4–6.9, 1.3–6.3, 0.6–3.1, 0.79–3.7, and 0.8–3.9 μm for 0.0Cu-HAP@CA, 0.2Cu-HAP@CA, 0.4Cu-HAP@CA, 0.6Cu-HAP@CA, and 0.8Cu-HAP@CA, respectively. The maximum roughness valley depth (Rv) was varied from 113.6 nm to 183.9 nm for the lowest and the highest Cu contributions. The mechanical properties were also investigated and showed that toughness was enhanced slightly from 3.2 ± 0.3 to 3.3 ± 0.4 MJ/m3 for 0.0Cu-HAP@CA and 0.6Cu-HAP@CA, respectively. Furthermore, the antibacterial behavior against both Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) were tested, whereas the highest inhibition zones reached 6.3 ± 1.5 and 6.5 ± 1.1 mm for the highest addition Cu. Finally, human fibroblasts cell lines were cultivated in-vitro through the nanofibrous scaffold, and cells showed a high degree of response with proliferation and growing behaviors upon the compositional modification. Hence, tailoring of good dressings might be developed via nanofibrous scaffolds containing modified ceramics.

Keywords

• Wound healing
• Electrospun nanofibers
• Hydroxyapatite
• Cu