Physically-crosslinked electrospun guar gum scaffolds

G.A. ABRAHAM; P.R. CORTEZ TORNELLO; G.R. CASTRO; A. MUKHERJEE

Mar del Plata

Simposio; XVI Simposio Latinoamericano de Polímeros SLAP2018; 2018

INTEMA

The study of biopolymer-based nanofibrous scaffolds are of great interest because its promising potential for applications in the medical and pharmaceutical fields. Electrospun micro- and nanofibers have structural andfunctional characteristics that improve mass transfer and drug release efficiency making them very attractive as drug delivery systems.Guar gum (GG) is a natural non-ionic and hydrophilic polysaccharide consisting of a chain of b-D-mannose units interposed with a-D-galactose moiety, obtainedfrom the seeds of Cyamopsis tetragonalobus. GG hydrogel systems have potential to be used in applications, such as transdermal, intestinal or colonicdrug delivery systems, biosensors, and water treatment processes. GG molecules can entrap a large amount of water and coherent structural changes areapparent in GG interactions with water3. It was reported in nanofibrous systems that GG backbone is resistant to aerobic hydrolysis and only undergoespartial hydrolysis in anaerobic intestinal or colonic microflora4.In this work, GG scaffolds were obtained by electrospinning technique using different amounts of trisodium trimetaphosphate (STMP) as crosslinker.Physicochemical and morphological characterization were performed to study the crosslinked networks.