Nanohydroxyapatite-doped polycaprolactone-based nanoscaffolds as a viable drug delivery agent in bone tissue engineering

In bone tissue engineering research, nanohydroxyapatite (n-HAp) has been recently gaining a lot of interest because of its excellent functional properties such as improvement in the formation of neo-tissue. In this study, the composite nanoscaffolds of n-HAp (0.1–0.5%)-doped polycaprolactone (PCL) (10%) were engineered by electrospinning as a drug delivery system and bone tissue growth. The cell proliferation activities of the prepared composite nanoscaffolds were examined in vitro using osteoblast cells like (MG-63) (Passage 10) cell line. The electrospun PCL/n-HAp nanoscaffolds were subjected to the drug delivery studies using a bone infection antibiotic cephalexin drug and the antibacterial study of the composite was carried out using Escherichia coli bacteria. These results revealed that the mechanical strength (13.25 ± 0.3536) increased and the fiber diameter decreased (100 nm) at the optimized n-HAp (0.4%) concentration, the maximum drug (68%) loading capacity of the electrospun nanofiber PCL/n-HAp takes place at 48 h and the maximum drug release was found to be 78% at 48 h. These novel nanohydroxyapatite-doped polycaprolactone (PCL/n-HAp) scaffolds show promising applications as a drug delivery system using cephalexin and this would also be a potential biomaterial for enhancing bone tissue growth. Graphic Abstract