Abstract

One of the most serious challenge in wound care is difficulty of the infection control in wound healing process. Wound dressings with antimicrobial effects are useful to minimize the bacterial infections of wounds. In this study a biocompatible and biodegradable silk fibroin/chitin nanocomposite scaffolds with various content of silver nanoparticles (0.001, 0.01, and 0.1) were fabricated via freeze-drying method for successful wound dressing application. The nanocomposite scaffolds have biocompatibility with high antimicrobial effects, good mechanical properties, and high porosity. Furthermore, swelling and water uptake, blood clotting, and biodegradability were also investigated. The antimicrobial evaluation with both disc diffusion method and colony counts imply that nanocomposite scaffolds have high antimicrobial activity and could successfully inhibit the growth of E. coli, S. aureus, and C. albicans. Also proliferation, cell viability, and cell attachment with MU assay and DAPI staining on nHFFF2 cell, have proved the cytocompatibility nature of the nanocomposite scaffolds. All results revealed that prepared nanocomposite scaffolds are good candidate for wound dressing and could be use in further in-vivo uses. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.