Fabrication of dual layered biocompatible herbal biopatch from biological waste for skin - tissue regenerative applications.

A dual layered herbal biopolymeric patch (biopatch) with enhanced wound healing efficiency and skin mimicking functions was fabricated for skin-tissue regenerative applications. In this study, hoof keratin (KE) extracted from biological waste and gelatin (GE) was employed for KE-GE biosheet fabrication using a simple casting method. Further, the top layer of the fabricated KE-GE biosheet was coated with bioactive Matricaria recutita (Chamomile flower) extract (CH) with gelatin through an electrospraying method. The optimized dual layered herbal biopatch (KE-GE/GE-CH) exhibits strong physiochemical (FTIR, XRD TG-DTA), mechanical (tensile strength) and biological (in vitro and in vivo) studies. Moreover, the morphology (SEM) of soft mimetic biopatch possesses excellent cell-material interaction and cell proliferation which accelerates the wound healing process. Biopatch demonstrates a proven degradation profile with good swelling features to achieve more than 80% herbal drug release in 96 h. Antimicrobial properties also reveal the potential activity of biopatch against bacterial microbes. In addition, in vitro cell viability using NIH 3T3 fibroblast cell lines and in vivo investigations revealed that the biopatch is non-cytotoxic, increases collagen deposition and shows rapid reepithelialization at the wound site as a potential wound dressing. We anticipated that the biological hoof keratin and bioactive herbal extract coated biopatch could serve as a desirable wound dressing candidate to suit various skin tissue regenerative applications.