Electrospinning Device: Silk fibroin mesh with both adhesive and disinfectant capabilities: a reliable therapy to prevent infectious complications

Biomedical Applications of Electrospun Silk Fibroin Materials

Electrospinning technology is able to produce silk fibroin fibers with diameters ranging from micrometers to nanometers, which show great potential in tissue regeneration, disease treatment, and drug delivery system development due to their unique biological, chemical, electrical, physical, mechanical, and optical properties. This suggests that electrospun silk fibroin materials may play an important role in surgical site infection prevention because they can mimic the structure of the natural extracellular matrix and provide an ideal environment for wound healing.

Development of Silk Fibroin Mesh (t1SG)

The type I silk fibroin mesh (t1SG) developed by Jinkee Hong's team at Yonsei University is an easy-to-handle, large-size, rollable, customizable, and plastic material. This material has little adhesion when dry, but exhibits significant adhesion after being immersed in a drug solution, exceeding the adhesion properties of commercial products. t1SG can physically protect the lesion area from pathogen penetration and biochemically disinfect it through the eluted disinfectant, and this dual function is considered to be a dual-effect disinfectant.

Tissue Engineering Applications of Electrospun Silk Fibroin

The application of electrospinning technology in tissue engineering has progressed rapidly, especially in the construction of nonwoven mats of different biomaterials with physical dimensions similar to the natural extracellular matrix. These three-dimensional pore structures with high porosity and high specific surface area are similar to the extracellular matrix in size and chemical structure, and are therefore excellent substitute materials in tissue engineering. This suggests that electrospun silk fibroin materials can serve as a barrier for the prevention of surgical site infections while promoting wound healing.

Adhesive properties of silk fibroin

t1SG exhibits excellent adhesive properties on medical-grade non-bioplastics or biological tissues extracted from mammals, and can maintain stable adhesion even under deformation stresses caused by artificial and daily movements. This stable adhesion performance is crucial for the prevention of surgical site infections because it ensures the integrity of the barrier and prevents the invasion of pathogens.

Elution kinetics of electrospun silk fibroin

The elution kinetics of t1SG are comparable to those of existing drug-eluting stents, meeting the remaining requirements of dual-effect disinfection. The elution rate constant (KH) was 3.46 mg cm-3min-1/2, indicating that t1SG is stable to biodegradation, which is of great significance for the prospect of extensive in vivo applications in various organs.

Clinical Potential of Electrospun Silk Fibroin

Based on the synergistic effect of dual-effect disinfection and antibiotic administration, t1SG has shown impressive potential in the clinical field. The significant improvement of severe inflammatory diseases in vivo makes t1SG an effective next-generation therapeutic strategy.

Summary

In summary, electrospinning technology and silk fibroin have a close connection in surgical site infection prevention and tissue adhesive applications. Electrospun silk fibroin materials can not only provide a physical barrier, but also provide biochemical disinfection by eluting drugs, thus playing an important role in surgical site infection prevention. At the same time, the development of t1SG provides a new material with excellent adhesion properties and biocompatibility for tissue adhesives, which is expected to achieve better therapeutic effects in clinical applications.

Electrospinning Nanofibers Article Source:

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsmaterialslett.2c00598