Structure and properties of Keratin/PEO blend nanofibres

Nanoscale fibres are actively studied for potential applications in different areas, ranging from technical textiles (e.g. filters, composites, reinforcement, protective fabrics, etc.) to biomedical devices (scaffolds for cell growth, vascular grafts, wound dressing or tissue engineering) where biocompatible polymers play an essential role1,2. Many works deal with the electrospinning of proteins, such as collagen3, silk4 and silk-like proteins5 in form of nanofilaments but few of them report on keratin, although it is the major component of hair, wool, feather, nail, horns and other epithelial coverings. Regenerated keratin degrade both in vitro and in vivo and keratin films support well the growth of mouse fibroblast cells. Owing to the fragility showed by regenerated keratins prepared by film casting, poly(ethylene-oxide) (PEO) with molecular weight of 400.000 was blended with wool keratin, with the aim of improving processability. PEO is well documented as a biocompatible polymer and has been successfully blended with collagen and silk fibroin for electrospinning6. Keratin was extracted from wool using urea, m-bisulphite and sodium dodecyl sulphates and PEO/keratin films produced by casting from aqueous solutions were characterised by Light Microscopy, FTIR and DSC. Blends were then electrospun in different operating conditions and the nanofibres were characterized by SEM, FT-IR and DSC analyses and compared with films of the same polymer blends, with the aim of investigating structural changes due to the nanoscale filament assembling. References [1] Doshi J, Reneker DH. Journal of Electrostatics 1995; 35 (2-3), 151-160. [2] Subbiah T, Bhat GS, Tock RW, Parameswaran S, Ramkumar SS. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2005; 96, 557-569. [3] Matthews J. A., Simpson D. G., Wnek G. E., Bowlin G. L. Biomacromolecules 2002, 3, 232-238. [4] Jin H. J., Fridrikh S. V., Rutledge G. C. and Kaplan D. L., Biomacromolecules 2002, 3 1233-1239 [5] Buchko C.J., Kozloff K. M., Martin D.C., Biomaterials 2001, 22, 1289-1300. [6] Desai NP, Hubbel JA, Biomaterials 1991, 12, 144.