Biomimetic Natural Electrospun Gelatin Scaffolds for Skin Regeneration

Recent advances in regenerative medicine provide encouraging strategies to produce artificial skin substitutes. Gelatin scaffolds are successfully used as wound dressing materials due to their superior properties, such as biocompatibility and the ability to mimic the extracellular matrix of the surrounding environment. In this study, five gelatin combination solutions were prepared and successfully electrospun using an electrospinning technique. After careful screening, the optimal concentration of the most promising combination was selected for further investigation. The obtained scaffolds were crosslinked with <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathbf{2 5 \%}$</tex> glutaraldehyde vapor and characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The incorporation of antibiotic agents such as ciprofloxacin hydrochloride and gentamicin sulfate into gelatin membranes improved the already existing antibacterial properties of antibiotic-free gelatin scaffolds against bacteria. Also, the outcomes of the in vivo model study revealed that skin regeneration was significantly accelerated with gelatin/ciprofloxacin scaffold treatment. Finally, the combination of gelatin's extracellular matrix and antibacterial agents in the scaffold suggests its potential for effective wound healing treatments, emphasizing the importance of gelatin scaffolds in tissue engineering.