Nanofibers as a Delivery System for Bioactive Compounds in Tissue Regeneration

Nanofibers are nanosystems known to have a three-dimensional structure similar to that of the extracellular matrix (ECM), and they present excellent capacity to incorporate active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). Among them, bioactive compounds such as essential oils, plant extracts, growth factors, and proteins have demonstrated desirable pharmacological properties, including antimicrobial, antioxidant, antiseptic, and healing actions. This study aims to present information on the impact of incorporating bioactive compounds into nanofibers applied to the treatment of tissue lesions. To this end, searches were carried out in journals such as “LILACS”, “Periódico CAPES”, “Science Direct” and “PubMed/ Medline”, resulting in 348 articles that met the criteria defined in the first analysis and, after rigorous application of the exclusion and inclusion criteria, a total of 98 articles were selected as the scientific basis for the composition of this study. Thus, the results showed that there was a predominance of studies focused on epithelial tissue (59.54%), compared to connective tissue (19.04%), muscle tissue (14.28%), and nervous tissue (7.14%). In addition to that, there was a higher frequency of applications of bioactive compounds of plant origin (47.61%), compared to the use of proteins (9.52%) and growth factors (7.14%), among other bioactive agents. Of all the techniques used to produce the nanofibers, electrospinning was predominant. However, additional in vivo studies and clinical trials are needed, since most current research remains limited to the development, physicochemical characterization, and in vitro evaluation of the synthesized nanomaterials, and this knowledge is fundamental to understanding nanofibers and their applications.