Enhanced Wound Healing of Ciprofloxacin Incorporated PVA/alginate/PAA Electrospun Nanofibers with Antibacterial Effects and Controlled Drug Release

Novel polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), alginate (Alg), and polyacrylic acid (PAA) based nanofiber matrix incorporated with ciprofloxacin (Cip) was manufactured via electrospinning. The functional matrix could accelerate wound healing and also prevent infections by a controlled release of ciprofloxacin. Beads were observed in PVA-Cip which disappeared with the addition of Alg and PAA resulting in the thinnest diameter (141 ± 53 nm) and the most uniform surface. The polymers underwent both intermolecular hydrogen and ester bonds via abundant carboxyl and hydroxyl groups trapping ciprofloxacin inside the matrix. The tensile properties of PVA-Alg-PAA-Cip were significantly higher than the other two samples because of the complex intermolecular bonds. Although the glass transition temperatures (Tg) of the samples were similar, the melting temperature (Tm) of PVA-Alg-PAA-Cip was the highest at 339 oC due to stronger intermolecular bonding. Because of the absorbable nature of alginate, PVA-Alg-Cip swelled the most (600%) in different pH conditions. A controlled release was achieved with only 40% release of ciprofloxacin from PVA-Alg-PAA-Cip compared to 70% in the case of PVA-Cip in neutral pH after 24 hours. Because of this slow release, all the samples were able to kill both S. aureus and E. coli for at least 7 days with just a single dose of the drug and PVA-Alg-PAA-Cip demonstrated higher bactericidal activity than other samples. The functional polymer matrix could induce faster healing in a murine excisional wound model, unlike the control group. Ciprofloxacin prevented bacterial infection facilitating faster re-epithelialization as observed in hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) and Masson’s trichrome (MT) staining.