Potential application of nanofibers in drug delivery has attracted a huge attention recently highlighting their properties including increased surface reactivity, high specific surface and improved drug bioavailability. Cardiac regenerative therapy, whereby pro-regenerative cells, drugs or growth factors are administered to myocardium has demonstrated significant potential in post-operative therapy.
One of the main conditions applied on drug delivery system materials are cardiac biocompatibility, tolerability, treatment efficacy. Our objective in this study was to develop a nanofibrous patch with a short degradation time for cardiac drug delivery and evaluate its properties relevant for the application site.
Silk fibroin based nanofibres were manufactured from Bombyx mori raw cocoons by degum procedure, ionic liquid dissolution and subsequent needle-less electrospinning. The electrospun nanofibres were crosslinked by alcohol dehydration.
Stabilized and unstabilized nanofibrous patches were characterized in terms of morphology, chemical composition and degradation kinetics. The main objective was focused on cardiac cytotoxic effect of nanofibres and its evaluation on H9C2 rat myoblastic cell line.