Prospects of antibacterial bioactive glass nanofibers for wound healing: An in vitro study

The present communication reports the synthesis of silver-containing bioactive glass by sol-gel route, followed by fabrication of the antibacterial bioactive glass nanofibers (ABGnf, dia 200-900 nm) using electrospinning technique. The ABGnf of composition 1-2 mol% of B2O3, 68-69 mol% of SiO2, similar to 1 x 10(-3) mol% of Ag2O, and 29-30 mol% of CaO was evaluated both for wound-healing potential and for antibacterial efficacy. An in vitro cell proliferation/migration assay was performed using SV-transformed GM00637 (skin fibroblast) cell line, wherein ABGnf exhibited significant cell proliferation (82%) compared to the control (47%) and ABGnf without boron (65%) in a period of 24 hours, thus establishing its wound-healing potential. Further, the antibacterial activity was assessed in vitro using the bacterial strain of Staphylococcus aureus. The results showed the zone of inhibition to be almost two times the control group treated with a model aminoglycoside antibiotic, tobramycin. In addition to the above advantages, the in vitro cytotoxicity assay showed an excellent cellular response. All these results have established promising wound healing and antibacterial potential of ABGnf.