PHBV Wound Dressing Containing 45B5 Borate Bioactive Glass: Effect of the Particle Incorporation Method on the Cytocompatibility and Antibacterial Activity

Borate bioactive glasses are more soluble than silicate's and convert rapidly and completely into hydroxyapatite (Ca5(PO4)3(OH)), being more suitable for wound healing applications than their silicate counterparts. In this work, the 45B5 composition (46.1 B2O3 – 26.9 CaO – 24.4 NaO – 2.6 P2O5, mol%)) were embedded into electrospun PHBV (Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate)) nanofibers by encapsulation and/or electrospray deposition aiming to produce a wound dressing with optimized bioactivity and antibacterial properties for wound healing applications. The fibers were characterized regarding their physical, structural, and thermal properties, and in vitro by L929 Mouse Fibroblast Cell Line adhesion, migration, and cytotoxicity and by its antibacterial activity against the bacteria S. aureus. The set of characterizations evidences that the encapsulation method was the most promising for the 45B5 embedding into PHBV nanofibers, as it produced a wound dressing with great loading efficiency (70%) with a highly hydrophilic surface, leading to expressive adhesion, migration, and viability of L929 cells and antibacterial activity. Thus, the nanofibers produced by the encapsulation method alone provided a dressing with high potential in wound healing management.