Green Electrospun Silk Fibroin Nanofibers Loaded with Cationic Ethosomes for Transdermal Drug Delivery

Abstract

Transdermal drug delivery system(TDDS) facilitates the controlled release of active ingredients penetrating through the skin, avoiding the liver first pass effect. Electrospinning is a simple process to fabricate ultrafine fibers with a higher specific surface area, making them excellent candidates for drug delivery. In current work, a novel silk fibroin(SF) nanofiber loaded with cationic ethosomes(CEs) was prepared via green electrospinning. The data of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy(FTIR) and laser scanning confocal microscopy(LSCM) confirmed the existence of CEs in the SF nanofibers. The morphology of the nanofibers was not significantly affected by the incorporation of CEs as shown by scanning electron microscopy(SEM) images. The CEs-loaded SF nanofibrous patch (CEs-SFnP) showed good cytocompatibility as proved by both cell counting Kit-8(CCK-8) assay and SEM. Using doxorubicin hydrochloride(Dox) as a model drug, the transdermal performance of CEs-SFnP was evaluated through Franz diffusion cell against mouse skin. The results indicated that CEs-SFnP can effectively deliver drug into the skin, with a much higher permeation rate than the normal nanofibers without CEs. The as-spun CEs-SFnP in this study could find promising applications in TDDS.