Production of electrospun polyvinyl alcohol/microbial synthesized silver nanoparticles scaffold for the treatment of fungating wounds

Abstract

Fungating wounds usually develop in patients with advanced cancer, which responds poorly to treatments. Such wounds can be treated using suitable dressings. For this purpose, a recent research produced a new type of wound dressing with antibacterial and anticancer properties. The culture supernatant of Fusarium oxysporum was challenged with silver nitrate and heated for 5 min. Production of silver nanoparticles (SNPs) was confirmed using spectrophotometer, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. A solution of 10% (w/w) poly vinyl alcohol (PVA) and different volumes of SNP solutions were provided, where each solution was separately used for electrospinning. The obtained PVA/SNPs film evaluated under morphological characterization using field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) and its antibacterial and anticancer activities were measured. Results confirmed the presence of SNPs in the reaction mixture with sizes less than 50 nm, spherical and oval in shapes. FE-SEM results confirmed that SNPs were seen inside and entrapped between PVA in the PVA/SNPs membrane, composed of 50% of each material. This film had acceptable antibacterial properties against four different bacterial strains and a good anticancer activity against the human melanoma cell line (COLO 792) in contrast to the control one. A recent research introduced a new and fast biological method for the synthesis of SNPs, having acceptable antibacterial and anticancer activities. Further studies are needed to support the obtained results.