PHBV nanofibers containing Melaleuca oil by electrospinning: a new generation of antimicrobian biomaterials

Abstract

Hospital morbidity due to skin lesions, especially burns, is considered a seriouspublic health problem. Therefore, tissue engineering has developed synthetic graftscapable of promoting accelerated cell growth, reducing the infections and rejectionsrisks, in addition to ensuring a greater comfort degree for recovering patients. Amonggrafts different productions methods, the nanofibers stand out for having greatersimilarity with the human body extracellular matrix nanoarchitecture. Such nanofibersare generally produced by electrospinning technique, which by adjusting its variousprocessing parameter is possible to produce nanofibers with specific propertiesessentials for this application: such as porosity and pore and nanofiber sizes. Thenanofibers grafts composed of natural biopolymer poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) contain characteristics that stand out in respect to othernatural and synthetic polymers, such as the oxygen barrier property, high viscosity onthe liquid state, favorable aspect on the electrospinning process, and piezoelectricproperty that collaborates to cell migration, proliferation and differentiation processesdue to electric signals generation in response to the applied stress. However, although ithas determinant features for engineering tissue application, PHBV is considered a rigidand brittle polymer, which can influence its mechanical resistance. Therefore, a solutionto this limitation may be on plants extracts incorporation to the PHBV nanofibers.Usually, these plants extracts are oils able to increase polymeric plasticity, and may alsoprovide its intrinsic properties to enhance skin tissue regeneration and healing; such asantimicrobial and anti-inflammatory activities. Among a wide variety of oils, tea tree oilis very promising to be incorporated to the PHBV nanofibers once it has all thoseintrinsic properties primordial for the development of a synthetic graft of optimizedproperties to skin tissue wound healing. In this context, the aim of this work is theproduction of PHBV nanofibers containing tea tree oil through electrospinningtechnique, generating a new and innovative study on the field of biomaterials for skintissue engineering.