Wound healing effect of electrospun silk fibroin nanomatrix in burn-model

Silk fibroin has recently become an important biomaterial for tissue engineering application. In this study, silk fibroin nanomatrix was fabricated by electrospinning and evaluated as wound dressing material in a burn rat model. The wound size reduction, histological examination, and the quantification of transforming growth factor TGF-beta 1 and interleukin IL-1 alpha, 6, and 10 were measured to evaluate the healing effects. The silk fibroin nanomatrix treatment exhibited effective performance in decreasing the wound size and epithelialization. Histological finding also revealed that the deposition of collagen in the dermis was organized by covering the wound area in the silk fibroin nanomatrix treated group. The expression level of pro-inflammatory cytokine (IL-1 alpha) was significantly reduced in the injured skin following the silk fibroin nanomatrix treatment compared to the medical gauze (control) at 7 days after burn. Also, the expression level of TGF-beta 1 in the wound treated with silk fibroin nanomatrix peaked 21-days post-treatment whereas expression level of TGF-beta 1 was highest at day 7 in the gauze treated group. In conclusion, this data demonstrates that silk fibroin nanomatrix enhances the burn wound healing, suggesting it is a good candidate for burn wound treatment. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.