Fabrication, surface properties and protein encapsulation/release studies of electrospun gelatin nanofibers

The aim of this study was to fabricate gelatin nanofibers by electrospinning and investigate the characteristics of these nanofibers. It has been reported that composite nanofibrous mats with drug impregnated in biocompatible and biodegradable polymer nanofibers can serve as tissue-engineering scaffolds with desired and controllable drug-release properties. The composite nanofibrous mats electrospun from a solution consisting of gelatin, bovine serum albumin (BSA, a model compound to simulate proteins), poly(ethylene glycol) sorbitan monolaurate (Tween-20) and 2,2,2-trifluoroethanol (TFE) were prepared and characterized. The BSA release profile in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS, pH 7.4) was recorded and analyzed. For comparison, nanofibrous mats electrospun from the solution containing gelatin and BSA were also prepared and assessed. The morphologies of the nanofibrous mats were examined by scanning electron microscopy; the surface hydrophilicity was measured by water contact angle method; and the protein-release profiles were recorded by analyzing BSA amount after immersing the electrospun nanofibrous mats in PBS for various time periods. The results indicated that the composite nanofibrous mats electrospun from the gelatin emulsion and/or solution had controllable protein-release behavior and they could be utilized as tissue-engineering scaffolds with protein encapsulated.