A study of chitosan nanofibers containing neomycin sulphate for wound healing activity

The rationale behind this project work was to prepare neomycin sulphate loaded chitosan nanofibers via electrospinning methods so as to enhance wound healing property. Natural polymers are used as main compounds for design of therapeutic drug delivery systems for treatment of different ailments. Chitosan and Neomycin sulphate have proven wound healing properties individually. The combination of these two, polymers and incorporation of drugs into the composite nanofibers show improvement in wound healing property. The drug loaded chitosan nanofibers were prepared with increasing concentrations of polymer and cross linker (glutaraldehyde). The characterization of these nanofibers is done by FT-IR, DSC and SEM studies. These prepared nanofibers were evaluated for fibers diameter, tensile strength, drug content, fluid uptake, moisture vapor transmission rate, antibacterial activity, in vitro drug release by diffusion studies and in vivo studies by excision wound model. The fibers diameter, tensile strength, drug content, fluid uptake, moisture vapor transmission rate, antibacterial activity for optimized formulation were observed to be 512± 60nm, 6.14± 0.63MPa, 98.58± 0.76%, 200.24± 0.31%, 2430.52±0.45, 2.46±0.081cm (S.aureus), 2.33±0.06cm (E.coli) and 59.49±0.52% respectively. The drug loaded nanofibers shown significant difference in antibacterial activity when compared to neomycin cream. Percentage of wound contraction was more for wounds treated with neomycin sulphate loaded chitosan nanofibers than the blank nanofibers and neomycin cream. With the above results, neomycin sulphate loaded chitosan combination had shown better results when compared to chitosan nanofibers and neomycin cream alone in wound healing activity.