Core/Shell Glycine-Polyvinyl Alcohol/Polycaprolactone Nanofibrous Membrane Intended for Guided Bone Regeneration: Development and Characterization

Abstract

Glycine (Gly), which is the simplest amino acid, induces the inflammation response and enhances bone mass density, and particularly its beta polymorph has superior mechanical and piezoelectric properties. Therefore, electrospinning of Gly with any polymer, including polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), has a great potential in biomedical applications, such as guided bone regeneration (GBR) application. However, their application is limited due to a fast degradation rate and undesirable mechanical and physical properties. Therefore, encapsulation of Gly and PVA fiber within a poly(epsilon-caprolactone) (PCL) shell provides a slower degradation rate and improves the mechanical, chemical, and physical properties. A membrane intended for GBR application is a barrier membrane used to guide alveolar bone regeneration by preventing fast-proliferating cells from growing into the bone defect site. In the present work, a core/shell nanofibrous membrane, composed of PCL as shell and PVA:Gly as core, was developed utilizing the coaxial electrospinning technique and characterized morphologically, mechanically, physically, chemically, and thermally. Moreover, the characterization results of the core/shell membrane were compared to monolithic electrospun PCL, PVA, and PVA:Gly fibrous membranes. The results showed that the core-shell membrane appears to be a good candidate for GBR application with a nano-scale fiber of 412 +/- 82 nm and microscale pore size of 6.803 +/- 0.035 mu m. Moreover, the wettability of 47.4 +/- 2.2 degrees contact angle (C.A) and mechanical properties of 135 +/- 3.05 MPa average modulus of elasticity, 4.57 +/- 0.04 MPa average ultimate tensile stress (UTS), and 39.43% +/- 0.58% average elongation at break are desirable and suitable for GBR application. Furthermore, the X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) results exhibited the formation of beta-Gly.