Fabrication, characterization and in vitro drug release behavior of electrospun PLGA/chitosan nanofibrous scaffold

In this study both aligned and randomly oriented poly(d,l-lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA)/chitosan nanofibrous scaffold have been prepared by electrospinning. The ratio of PLGA to chitosan was adjusted to get smooth nanofiber surface. Morphological characterization using scanning electron microscopy showed that the aligned nanofiber diameter distribution obtained by electrospinning of polymer blend increased with the increase of chitosan content which was similar to that of randomly oriented nanofibers. The release characteristic of model drug fenbufen (FBF) from the FBF-loaded aligned and randomly oriented PLGA and PLGA/chitosan nanofibrous scaffolds was investigated. The drug release rate increased with the increase of chitosan content because the addition of chitosan enhanced the hydrophilicity of the PLGA/chitosan composite scaffold. Moreover, for the aligned PLGA/chitosan nanofibrous scaffold the release rate was lower than that of randomly oriented PLGA/chitosan nanofibrous scaffold, which indicated that the nanofiber arrangement would influence the release behavior. In addition, crosslinking in glutaraldehyde vapor would decrease the burst release of FBF from FBF-loaded PLGA/chitosan nanofibrous scaffold with a PLGA/chitosan ratio less than 9/1, which would be beneficial for drug release.