Recently, nanofibers have attracted great interest for the treatment of skin and mucosal diseases and injuries. These include chronic wounds, the pathophysiology of which is closely related to an imbalanced immune system that can be controlled by immunomodulatory drugs. Such an effect can also be obtained with natural substances contained in the extract of Cannabis sativa L., of which the best-known molecule is cannabidiol (CBD).
In the master’s thesis, we focused on the development of a mathematical model using the Design of Experiments (DoE) method, which will allow us to produce polymer nanofibers with the extract of Cannabis sativa L. with the desired properties. First, nanofibers with different proportions of polycaprolactone (PCL) and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and ethanol extract of Cannabis sativa L. were produced using the electrostatic spinning method. To create the DoE model, we varied the composition of the polymeric solutions (proportion of polymer and extract), and the voltage required for electrospinning.
According to the resulting DoE model, we fabricated the nanofibers and evaluated their diameter using scanning electron microscopy images, surface hydrophilicity by measuring the contact angle of water on the nanofibers, phase transitions were determined by differential dynamic calorimetry, weight loss by thermogravimetric analysis, and possible interactions between the polymer and CBD were checked by the FT-IR method. The content of the CBD in nanofibers and its release were analyzed using the HPLC method.
We have established a reproducible and reliable DoE model for production of uniform nanofibers. We have observed that CBD in aqueous solutions degrades under the influence of light, that very little residual solvent is present in the nanofibers and that there are no interactions between the polymer and the extract. Further was demonstrated that CBD can be released immediately or over a prolonged period from different nanofibers. The release of CBD from PCL nanofibers is prolonged, while that from PVP nanofibers is immediate, resulting from different release mechanisms.
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