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The overall therapeutic effect of bioactive compounds (bioactives) is not only related to their in vitro potency. Under physiological conditions, bioactives face biological barriers such as insolubility, aggregation, and degradation that threaten their therapeutic properties. In addition, the potency of a bioactive can be severely reduced by various stresses (e.g., pressure, heat, humidity, and pH), which can occur both in vitro and in vivo (during storage, administration, or systemic circulation).
To address these bottlenecks, a variety of delivery systems have been designed. Highly efficient carriers can promote the stability, potency, bioaccessibility, bioavailability, tolerability, and safety of different bioactives. As a result, they can offer outstanding advantages over many naked bioactives and can even facilitate applications of bioactives that would otherwise not be possible due to low (bio)stability/bioavailability. Therefore, the proper design and formulation of the carrier system is often as important as the bioactive itself and must be carefully considered.
The main point of this paper
Electrospinning (E-spin):
Method of fabricating nano- to micron-diameter fibers using electrostatic forces.
Electrospun fibers (EFs) have adjustable physical properties and are suitable for loading a wide range of bioactive substances.
Control of electrospun fibers:
Fiber properties are controlled by adjusting the electric field density, diameter, and alignment.
Parameters include collector plate design, rotation speed, electric field strength, solvent/polymer type, solution flow rate, and spinneret-to-collector distance.
Functional electric field engineering:
Engineered electric fields interact with the biological environment.
Materials can be derived from natural or artificial synthetic polymers.
Limitations of synthetic polymers:
Applications are limited by bioabsorbability, biocompatibility, and biodegradability.
Advantages of natural polymers:
Historically used in food/biomedical engineering.
Protein matrices are ideal due to their biocompatibility, non-immunogenicity, and ease of functionalization.
Protein matrix properties:
Biochemical and biophysical properties at the molecular level.
Functionality can be tuned to affect bioactive loading, release characteristics, and degradation rates.
Biodegradable to amino acids with non-toxic degradation products.
Synthetic or natural precursor polymers can be used to design EFs as carriers of bioactive compounds
Importance of polymer selection:
For engineered food systems, it is critical to select polymers with non-toxicity, non-immunogenicity, biocompatibility, slow/controllable biodegradability, and structural integrity
Advantages of protein-based biomaterials:
The unique properties of protein-based biomaterials endow EFs with a variety of desirable properties that meet the requirements of advanced food/biomedical applications
Biologically active loading of protein EFs:
Protein-based EFs have potential applications in loading bioactive compounds, stimulating interest from academia and industry
Challenges and prospects:
Challenges in developing bioactive carriers using protein EFs, including challenges in standardizing their mechanical and physical properties
Advances in electrospinning technology:
Recent advances and innovations in electrospinning technology, including the latest research on nanoencapsulation of different bioactive components
Applications of protein electrospun nanofibers:
Potential applications of protein electrospun nanofibers in pharmaceutical and biomedical fields, especially their biodegradability and compatibility with living cells
The high versatility of proteins in nature is outstanding. As different protein structures are highly tunable for specific applications, it is not surprising that EFs designed from proteins can be applied in countless disciplines such as food packaging, wound dressings, and more importantly, bioactive delivery. The use of protein-based biopolymers and promising encapsulation methods such as E-spin has opened up avenues for innovation in the field of food science and technology. Protein EFs are very suitable candidates for loading and encapsulating bioactive substances, thanks to their superior properties of being biodegradable and biocompatible as well as sustainably sourced over various synthetic polymers. As the most adaptable engineering technology, E-spin can be applied to a variety of protein-based E-spin encapsulation technologies to combine the inherent properties of proteins to encapsulate and load bioactive substances.
