Antibiotic loaded electrospun poly (lactic acid) nanofiber mats for drug delivery system

Active material-loaded nanofibers becoming more important, because of their applications in many areas such as wound healing, skin engineering, and drug release. This study was conducted to compare the release kinetics of three different antibiotics loaded on nanofibers in Phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) solution and their inhibition properties against bacteria. The three different commercial antibiotics; vancomycin (VAN), ceftriaxone (CFT), and cefpodoxime (CFD) were loaded into Polylactic acid (PLA) nanofibers via electrospinning process with different percentages; 5%, 7.5%, and 10% weight ratios of PLA. The SEM images of PLA/Antibiotic nanofibers and pure PLA nanofiber revealed an increase in diameters with the presence of antibiotics embedded in PLA nanofiber. The TGA analysis showed that the thermal degradation of CFD and VAN-loaded nanofibers were higher than neat PLA, while the thermal stability of CFT loaded nanofibers was the lowest. In the Tan Delta curves, the Tg temperatures of CFD, VAN, CFT loaded nanofibers and pure PLA nanofiber were determined as 54.56 °C, 54.57 °C, 53.86 °C, and 53.55 °C, respectively. As can be seen from the results, the variation of the glass transition temperatures supports the DSC data. Drug releasing behaviors of PLA/Antibiotic nanofibers were investigated by Ultraviolet–Visible Spectroscopy at 280, 242 and 230 nm wavelength for VAN, CFT, and CFD antibiotics, respectively. Drug-releasing amounts were gradually increased by increasing the drug loading amounts from 5% to 10%. PLA-VAN, PLA-CFT, and PLA-CFD nanofibers which contain 10% of drugs were delivered about 79%, 75%, and 29% of drugs linearly within nearly 380 h, 500 h, and 360 h, respectively. The formulations including CFT at different concentrations were found to be effective against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli in a dose-dependent manner. The formulations including CFD and VAN at different concentrations have also inhibited the growth of S. aureus.