Controllable dual protein delivery through electrospun fibrous scaffolds with different hydrophilicities

Tissue engineered scaffolds should actively participate not only in structural support but also in functional tissue regeneration. Thus, novel smart biomaterial scaffolds have been developed, which incorporate a variety of bioactive molecules to accelerate neo-tissue formation. The effective delivery of multiple bioactive molecules with distinct kinetics to target sites at an appropriate concentration and in a timely manner is desired to drive tissue development to completion. To achieve effective, controllable delivery of multiple factors, a dual protein delivery system has been developed by electrospinning poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) with different hydrophilicities. Bovine serum albumin or myoglobin was incorporated into and released gradually from these electrospun fibrous PLGA scaffolds. All the scaffolds exhibited similar loading efficiencies of approximately 80% of the target proteins. The introduction of Pluronic F-127 (PF127) dramatically increased scaffold hydrophilicity, which affected the release kinetics of these proteins from the scaffolds. Furthermore, distinct protein release patterns were achieved when using dual protein-loaded scaffolds with different hydrophilicities when these scaffolds were fabricated by co-electrospinning. This system may be useful as a method for delivering multiple bioactive vehicles for tissue engineering applications.