Functionalized silk fibroin nanofibers as drug carriers: Advantages and challenges

Electrospinning is well thought of as the most potent nanofiber producing technique, which is applicable in biomedical fields. The generation of electrospun nanofibers as drug carriers has widely been shown much interest over the past years. Electrospun nanofibers meet various advantages as drug delivery platforms including high surface area, acceptable mechanical properties based on the choice of the polymer, high processability, and the possibilities for surface modifications. Silk fibroin protein has gained a great attention as a drug delivery carrier due to ease of purification, sterilization, processability without using chemical crosslinkers, good biocompatibility, tailorable biodegradability, low immunogenicity, and high capacity to stabilize the loaded drugs. These characteristics along with advantageous benefits of electrospinning provide opportunities for producing suitable nanofibers based on silk fibroin for drug delivery purposes. It is also possible to incorporate various functional moieties to the electrospun silk fibroin nanofibers to enhance its biological activities. This review covers the progress in electrospinning of silk fibroin as a drug carrier in recent years.