Production, characterization and investigation of in vivo performance of uridine loaded nanofibrous wound dressings

The aim of this thesis is to produce nanofibrous surfaces from polycaprolactone (PCL) polymer by adding uridine at different concentrations by electrospinning method and to investigate their use as a wound dressing. The study consists of two parts. In the first part, nanofiber surfaces were produced from PCL polymer solutions at different concentrations. After determining the optimum polymer concentration, uridine was added at different rates (0.1%, 0.5% and 1%(w/w)) to the polymer solutions and nanofiber surfaces were obtained by electrospinning method using the most suitable production parameters that allow nanofiber production. The surface characterizations of the samples were determined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), contact angle measurements, internal structure analyzes were determined by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). In the second part of the study, the performance of uridine-added nanofiber surfaces as a wound dressing was investigated in vitro and in vivo. The release of uridine was followed by Ultraviolet Visible light (UV-VIS) spectrophotometer. It was determined that as the added uridine concentration increased, the burst release from the surface increased. In the in vivo experiments, a commercial dressing was used to compare the dressing performance with and without uridine added nanofibrous surfaces. A wound model was created in the back regions of Sprague Dawley females and the rate of wound closure was followed on certain days. When these ratios were examined, it was observed that uridine-containing dressings performed better than the pure nanofiber dressings and accelerated wound healing in the first days compared to commercial dressings.