Periodontal disease is a serious global health problem. Current treatment strategies are ineffective and often result in the disease recurrence. One of the new potential treatments is the local delivery of probiotics, which originate from the oral microbiota of healthy volunteers and release antimicrobials. The aim of the master's thesis was to prepare and evaluate hydrophobic nanofibers of polycaprolactone and polyethylene oxide with incorporated spores of bacterial strain 25.2.M of the genus Bacillus. In the master's thesis, electrospinning was used to produce polymer nanofibers with incorporated spores (1.15 x 108 CFU/g). The influence of solvent mixture and process on the spore viability, nanofiber morphology, spore release from nanofibers and their germination were evaluated by various methods. Using scanning electron microscopy, we confirmed that the spores were successfully incorporated into polycaprolactone nanofibers. Statistical analysis revealed significant differences in the diameter of nanofibers, while the thickness of the nanofiber mats was not significantly different between the samples. We have shown that the exposure of spores to the solvent mixture, reduced the concentration of live spores by 1 log unit, while electrospinning did not significantly affect their viability. The composition of the nanofibers did not affect the spore viability. By altering the content of polyethylene oxide in the nanofibers, their porosity after exposure to the aqueous medium was adjusted. Porosity has been shown to affect the rate of spore release from nanofibers, thus the release occurs faster from nanofibers with higher content of polyethylene oxide. About 10 times higher amount of spores was released from polycaprolactone nanofibers with 40 % polyethylene oxide compared to polycaprolactone nanofibers without the addition of polyethylene oxide. Using optical microscopy, we showed that the time required for spore germination and outgrowth of probiotic from nanofibres varies between samples. The bacteria outgrowth from nanofibers with 40 % polyethylene oxide started already after 8 h, while it took 14 h for bacteria to grow from nanofibers with 5 % polyethylene oxide. Polycaprolactone based nanofibers with addition of polyethylene oxide represent a promising approach for local delivery of potential probiotics for the treatment of periodontal disease and represent an alternative way in the fight against bacterial resistance.
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