Effect of blending HA-g-PLLA on xanthohumol-loaded PLGA fiber membrane

Electropsun poly (lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) fiber membrane loaded xanthohumol (XN) has been developed using a co-solvent system of chloroform and dimethylformamide. To enhance its biological functionality as bone tissue engineering scaffolds, 5wt% hydroxyapatite grafted poly (l-lactic acid) (HA-g-PLLA) is blended into the spinning solution. The purpose of the present work is to disclose the effect of blending HA-g-PLLA on the corresponding properties of the medicated fiber membrane including morphology, thermodynamics, wettability, drug release, mechanics as well as cytotoxicity. XN and HA-g-PLLA can be well blended with PLGA to make fibers. Blending HA-g-PLLA not only turns amorphous XN/PLGA fiber membrane into crystal structure, but also changes the membranous wettability. Various medicated membranes exhibit the sustained release profiles. Drug release rate of the ternary membrane with HA-g-PLLA is slower compared to the binary XN/PLGA, and for the ternary membrane, the drug release accelerates with increasing XN content. A model is proposed to account for the drug release process. Tensile testing shows that at 10% of XN, the comprehensive mechanics of the ternary is preferable to the binary. At the same time, these fiber membranes are no cytotoxicity.