Silk fibroin based antibacterial bionanotextiles as wound dressing materials

New applications for medical biotextiles have been identified with the development of nanotechnological manufacturing technologies. Combination of nanotechnology and biotextile technology has resulted into a new field called bionanotextiles. Bionanotextiles are used in many areas which include wound dressings, bandages and tissue scaffolds. Silk fibroin (SF) from the cocoon of Bombyx mori, is one of the most favorable wound dressing materials due to its unique properties including biocompatibility, permeability, biodegradability, morphologic flexibility, and proper mechanical properties. The modification of antimicrobial properties of SFs can provide a barrier for bacterial penetration as wound dressing materials. In the present study, antibacterial polyethylenimine (PEI) (10, 20 and 30% (w/w)) was blended with SF and bionanotextiles were successfully fabricated by electrospinning. In addition, silk fibroin nanofibers were also functionalized with sulphate group in order to test whether they exhibit an antibacterial activity or not. Fibroin based bionanotextiles were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The cytotoxicity evaluations were carried out by L929 fibroblasts with MTT assay. The indirect cytotoxicity results demonstrate that all fibroin and PEI/fibroin extracts have no cytotoxicity on L929 cancer cell line. PEI/fibroin bionanotextiles showed strong antibacterial activities against gram positive Staphylococcus aureus and gram negative Pseudomonas aeruginosa.