Antibacterial and antioxidant assessment of cellulose acetate/ polycaprolactone nanofibrous mats impregnated with propolis Kamyar Khoshnevisan a,b, ⁎ ,1 , Hassan Maleki c,1 , Hadi Samadian d , Maryam Doostan e , Mohammad Reza Khorramizadeh a,b, ⁎ a Biosensor Research Center, Endocrinology and Metabolism Molecular-Cellular Sciences Institute, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran b Endocrinology and Metabolism Research Center, Endocrinology and Metabolism Clinical Sciences Institute, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran c Department of Medical Nanotechnology, School of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran d Pharmaceutical Sciences Research Center, Health Institute, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, Iran e Department of Medical Nanotechnology, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, Iran abstract article info Article history: Received 7 July 2019 Received in revised form 21 August 2019 Accepted 23 August 2019 Available online 28 August 2019 Cellulose acetate (CA) electrospun nanofibers are one of the most practical cellulosic material which normally ap- plied as carriers for drug delivery and wound healing systems. In this study, CA and polycaprolactone (PCL) was applied to fabricate the electrospun nanofibrous for wound dressing application. Propolis is a resin-like macro- molecule produced by honeybees from the buds and diverse plants. Among many applications of this macromol- ecule, it has been occasionally employed directly to the skin for wound healing applications. Herein, owing to the significance of propolis, CA/PCL nanofibers were impregnated with a propolis-extracted solution to reach anti- bacterial and antioxidant mat. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images revealed that electrospinning of 10% (w/w) CA along with 14% (w/w) PCL produced excellent nanofibers compared to the resultant nanofibers. Hydrophobicity/hydrophilicity nature of CA/PCL mats was measured using water contact-angle method before and after treatment with NaOH. The nanofibrous mats exhibited a high water absorption capacity of about 400%. Antioxidant effect was measured by 2,2-Diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay and propolis-CA/PCL presented a high antioxidant activity. Additionally, propolis-CA/PCL mats showed antibacterial activity against both the Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. In conclusion, our results have confirmed that the propolis-impregnated CA/PCL mats have provided an appropriate surface for wound healing system. © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Nanofibrous mats Propolis Wound dressing Electrospinning Wound healing 1. Introduction Nowadays, electrospun nanofibers (NFs) have been proposed as a novel nano-engineered dermal and transdermal drug delivery systems (DDSs) [1–4]. Electrospinning as the enabling technology has been de- veloped in last decades and the obtained nanofibers have exhibited fas- cinating properties in the wide range of applications [5–7]. These NFs are able to eliminate the problems of conventional DDSs such as drug degradation in the oral intake and the first-pass metabolism in the liver, which can be used to treat many human skin wounds or diseases [8,9]. Moreover, electrospun nanofibers have exhibited brilliant proper- ties as the wound dressing material [10–14]. They have a high surface to volume ratio, suitable for drug adsorption/desorption and effective in- teractions with the wound bed. Their porosity is adjustable and suitable for gases' transition, while they prevent invading pathogen penetration [15–17]. Bacteria-caused infections are responsible for the high rates of death, so that skin and soft tissue infections (SSTIs) are the most widely recog- nized kinds of infections that the yearly affecting roughly 14 million people in the United States [17]. To address this health problem, NFs as the wound dressings or scaffolds/matrices can provide a biomimetic nanofibrillar architecture with various capabilities including absorbing exudates, loading and protecting one and/or more therapeutic agents, and releasing spatiotemporal controlled drug [17–20]. In this regard, a variety of synthetic, semisynthetic, and natural polymers have been ex- clusively applied due to low cost, nontoxic, easy availability, biodegrad- ability, and biocompatibility [21–25]. Among these polymers, cellulose acetate (CA), the acetate ester of cellulose, has been extensively used to manufacture electrospun fibers for multifarious applications includ- ing drug-loaded wound dressings [4,16,26,27]. CA electrospun NFs is a preferred material for drug delivery applications owing to its biodegrad- ability, biocompatibility, good hydrolytic stability, chemical resistance, etc. [28,29]. In addition, it possesses the ability of high entrapment effi- ciency and simultaneous delivery of diverse therapeutics [30–33]. International Journal of Biological Macromolecules 140 (2019) 1260–1268 ⁎ Corresponding authors at: Biosensor Research Center, Endocrinology and Metabolism Molecular-Cellular Sciences Institute, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. E-mail addresses: k-khoshnevisan@razi.tums.ac.ir (K. Khoshnevisan), khoramza@tums.ac.ir (M.R. Khorramizadeh). 1 The first and second authors equally contributed to this study. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2019.08.207 0141-8130/© 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect International Journal of Biological Macromolecules journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ijbiomac