Polyphenol-loaded polycaprolactone nanofibers for effective growth inhibition of human cancer cells

The use of polymeric nanofibers as drug carriers can be promising in the future for biomedical applications, especially postoperative local chemotherapy. PCL is a biodegradable polyester that has been frequently explored as implantable carriers for drug delivery systems. To develop a drug carrier that enables cancer therapy, plant polyphenol-loaded PCL nanofibers were fabricated by electrospinning. The resulting nanofibers exhibited a fully interconnected pore structure and their average diameter was increased by the addition of plant polyphenol. ATR-FTIR and XRD results clearly revealed the existence of intermolecular interaction between PCL and plant polyphenol in nanofibers. The crystallinity obtained from the DSC data increased with the incorporation of plant polyphenol from 52.0% to 57.8%. The nanofibers showed no burst release and controlled release of EGCG and CA, which implied the homogenous dispersion and perfect inclusion of plant polyphenol within the nanofibers. The released plant polyphenol can generate H2O2, which is the major cause of cytotoxicity of EGCG and CA. Moreover, H2O2 generated by plant polyphenol is mainly involved in apoptosis of gastric cancer cells by activation of caspase-3.