Preparation of Zein/PVP based conduits with tunable degradation

Abstract

Degradation of scaffolds is an important requirement for their applications in tissue engineering. The degradation rate should match the regeneration rate of growing tissue; therefore, controlling the degradation rate is considered as an important parameter in scaffold designing. In the present study, ciprofloxacin-loaded zein/Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) based conduits were prepared using a facile method. Conduits were prepared with different amounts of PVP (2–32%), while fixed amounts of zein and ciprofloxacin were used. Conduits were evaluated for morphological analysis, porosity, mechanical strength, ciprofloxacin release, antibacterial efficacy, cytocompatibility, and in vitro/in vivo degradation. Conduits showed better bending stiffness (8.6–31.6 N mm2) and controlled porosity (66.3–88.7%). A controllable degradation rate could be achieved which was dependent on the amount of PVP. Conduits with higher PVP amount degraded faster than those of having lower PVP. Furthermore, the release dynamics of ciprofloxacin was also found to be dependent upon the amount of PVP and showed tunable behavior, as fitted by different drug-release models. As expected, the in vivo implantation in SD rats showed that the degradation of the conduits using 32% PVP as a porogen was hastened significantly. Overall, the zein/PVP conduits exhibited a tunable degradation rate and drug release.