Fish gelatin nanofibers prevent drug crystallization and enable ultrafast delivery

Abstract

For drug delivery, uncontrolled drug crystallization is the most important and well-described problem which affects the compatibility between target drug and carrier polymer matrix. The crystallization of drugs makes a drug delivery system unstable and it causes a drop the drug loading efficiency and unpredictable release behavior. Recently, the electrospinning process which has rapid solvent evaporation speed has been proposed to prevent the drug crystallization during the drug loading process. In the present study, a fast-dissolving nanofibrous drug delivery carrier was prepared via electrospinning of aqueous fish gelatin as the polymer carrier and caffeine as the hydrophilic model drug under environmentally friendly conditions. Fish gelatin electrospinning was able to produce caffeine loaded gelatin nanofibers with a diameter of 200–220 nm. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) data clearly showed that the amorphous state of caffeine was well incorporated into ultrafine nanofibrous carrier whereas crystalline caffeine was dispersed into conventional fish gelatin film. Fish gelatin nanofibers were able to load two times more caffeine (20 mg ml⁻¹) than conventional caffeine-loaded polymer nanofibers. The fish gelatin nanofibrous mat has good flexibility compared to film due to its interporous nanofiber network. The fish gelatin nanofibrous mats disintegrated within 1.5 s, 27 times faster than films. Fish gelatin nanofibers also showed that most caffeine was released within 10 seconds, which is faster than fish gelatin film and free caffeine drugs. These fish gelatin nanofibers showed 10 times faster caffeine release rates than other caffeine loaded polymer nanofibers. Electrospun fish gelatin nanofibrous mats can be used in biomedical fields especially for the ultra fast delivery of hydrophilic drugs or active ingredients.