LAUSR

Zein, a corn-derived protein, has a variety of promising applications ranging from drug-delivery to tissue engineering and wound healing. This work aimed to develop a biocompatible scaffold for dermal applications based on thermally annealed electrospun propolis-loaded zein nanofibers. Pristine fibers biocompatibility was determined in vitro. Next, propolis from Melipona quadrifasciata was added to the fibers at different concentrations (5 to 25%), and the scaffolds were studied. The physicochemical properties of zein/propolis precursor dispersions were fully evaluated and the results were correlated to fibers properties. Due to zein and propolis very favorable interactions, which are responsible for the increase in the dispersions surface tension, nanometric size ribbon-like fibers ranging from 420 to 575 nm were obtained. The fiber´s hydrophobicity was not dependent on propolis concentration and highly increased with the annealing procedure. Propolis inhibitory concentration (IC50 ) was determined as 61.78 μg/mL. When loaded into fibers, propolis was gradually delivered to cells as Balb/3T3 fibroblasts were able to adhere, grow, and interact with pristine and propolis-loaded fibers and cytotoxicity was not observed. Therefore, the zein-propolis nanofibers are considered biocompatible and safe. The achieved results are promising and provide prospects for the development of wound-healing nanofiber patches - one of propolis main applications. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.