Fabrication and characterization of electrospun polyurethane blended with dietary grapes for skin tissue engineering

Abstract

The tissue-engineered skin has emerged as a plausible alternative approach to the traditional wound dressing owing to its inherent advantages. Further, in tissue engineering applications, fibrous scaffold obtained through textile technologies is widely attractive. The present study focused on the fabrication of electrospun textile polyurethane wound dressing scaffold incorporated with grape extract. The fabricated composites showed smooth as well as reduced fiber (730 ± 127 nm) and pore (873 ± 51 nm) diameter than the control polyurethane (fiber diameter –890 ± 117 and pore diameter –1064 ± 74 nm) as revealed in the scanning electron microscopy. The formation of hydrogen bond in Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy revealed the interaction between the polyurethane and grape. The addition of grape enhanced the wettability behavior (86° ± 2) and the surface roughness (469 nm) of the polyurethane membrane. Thermal gravimetric analysis and mechanical testing revealed the enhancement of thermal and tensile strength with the incorporation of the grape into the polyurethane matrix. The in vitro blood compatibility and cytocompatibility studies revealed enhanced antithrombogenicity behavior and the non-toxic nature to human dermal fibroblast cells for the fabricated composites than the pristine polyurethane. Hence, the addition of grape into the polyurethane matrix had enhanced the physicochemical characteristics and biocompatibility parameters which could promote this candidate as a valid alternative for skin tissue engineering regeneration.