Journal of Nanomedicine & Biotherapeutic Discovery
Open Access

Abstract

Safety and Efficacy of Polydioxanone Nano-Fibers as Anti-Inflammatory Agents

Sastry Gollapudi, Chang Sok So, Michael Formica, Sudhanshu Agrawal and Anshu Agrawal

The use of biodegradable polydioxanone (PDO) nano-fibers for various purposes is increasing but the effects of these fibers on immune responses are not well understood. We examined the potential stimulatory and inhibitory effects of PDO coated fibers on immune cell functions in vitro in humans and in vivo in mice. Short term in vitro exposure of human blood to PDO did not perturb the phagocytic function of human monocytes and neutrophils. In contrast lymphocytes exhibited an increased proliferative function in response to polyclonal T cell mitogen, PHA. However, cytokine secretion by monocytes and lymphocytes as well as NK cell cytotoxic effector cell functions were undisturbed by PDO exposure. Long term in vivo exposure to PDO had no effect on dendritic cells activation, cytokine secretion and T regulatory induction. Injection of PDO into mice withrheumatoid arthritis suggested that PDO nano-fibers tend to be anti-inflammatory as an increase in IL-10 was observed in the PDO treated groups. In spite of this the arthritic score and TNF-α and IFN-γ levels were not significantly different between PDO- treated and untreated rheumatoid arthritis induced mice. In conclusion, PDO nano-fibers have no significant adverse effect on immune functions and tend to induce anti-inflammatory responses upon long term exposure in vivo.