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Fabrication and characterization of electrospun poly(ecaprolactone) fibrous membrane with antibacterial
functionality
Idris Cerkez, Ayse Sezer and Sukhwinder K. Bhullar
Article citation details
R. Soc. open sci. 4: 160911.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160911
Review timeline
Original submission:
Revised submission:
Final acceptance:
21 November 2016
4 January 2017
5 January 2017
Note: Reports are unedited and appear as
submitted by the referee. The review history
appears in chronological order.
Note: This manuscript was transferred from another Royal Society journal with peer review.
Review History
RSOS-160911.R0 (Original submission)
Review form: Reviewer 1
Is the manuscript scientifically sound in its present form?
Yes
Are the interpretations and conclusions justified by the results?
Yes
Is the language acceptable?
Yes
Is it clear how to access all supporting data?
Yes
Do you have any ethical concerns with this paper?
No
© 2017 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use,
provided the original author and source are credited
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2
Have you any concerns about statistical analyses in this paper?
No
Recommendation?
Accept as is
Comments to the Author(s)
Please check for language use throughout the manuscript. (See Appendix A.)
Review form: Reviewer 2
Is the manuscript scientifically sound in its present form?
No
Are the interpretations and conclusions justified by the results?
Yes
Is the language acceptable?
Yes
Is it clear how to access all supporting data?
Yes
Do you have any ethical concerns with this paper?
No
Have you any concerns about statistical analyses in this paper?
No
Recommendation?
Accept as is
Comments to the Author(s)
There are few points to concern:
•
The authors claimed that this study could use in biomedical applications in the
introduction part, however, the cell cytotoxicity and cell viability haven’t been performed.
•
The authors mentioned in Mechanical Testing (Results and Discussions part) that “silver
loading dramatically increased the ultimate stress and slightly reduced strain at break”. And the
last sentence in this section was “it can be concluded that silver chloride can be used to impart
biocidal function to the PCL membranes with improved mechanical properties”. Without
statistical analysis, how could the authors confirm the significant difference between the samples?
Could the authors describe the number of samples for tensile strength testing and add the errors
bar to the bar chart for Figure 4b?
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3
Decision letter (RSOS-160911)
16-Dec-2016
Dear Dr Bhullar,
Title: Fabrication and Characterization of Electrospun Poly(e-caprolactone) Fibrous Membrane
with Antibacterial Functionality
Manuscript ID: RSOS-160911
Thank you for submitting the above manuscript to Royal Society Open Science. On behalf of the
Editors and the Royal Society of Chemistry, I am pleased to inform you that your manuscript will
be accepted for publication in Royal Society Open Science subject to minor revision in accordance
with the referee suggestions. Please find the reviewers' comments at the end of this email.
The reviewers and handling editors have recommended publication, but also suggest some minor
revisions to your manuscript. Therefore, I invite you to respond to the comments and revise your
manuscript.
Because the schedule for publication is very tight, it is a condition of publication that you submit
the revised version of your manuscript within 7 days (i.e. by the 25-Dec-2016). If you do not think
you will be able to meet this date please let me know immediately.
To revise your manuscript, log into https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rsos and enter your
Author Centre, where you will find your manuscript title listed under "Manuscripts with
Decisions". Under "Actions," click on "Create a Revision." You will be unable to make your
revisions on the originally submitted version of the manuscript. Instead, revise your manuscript
and upload a new version through your Author Centre.
When submitting your revised manuscript, you will be able to respond to the comments made by
the referees and upload a file "Response to Referees" in "Section 6 - File Upload". You can use this
to document any changes you make to the original manuscript. In order to expedite the
processing of the revised manuscript, please be as specific as possible in your response to the
referees.
When uploading your revised files please make sure that you have:
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and figure captions. Do not upload a PDF as your "Main Document".
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should be produced directly from original creation package), or original software format)
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4) Included the raw data to support the claims made in your paper. You can either include your
data as electronic supplementary material or upload to a repository and include the relevant doi
within your manuscript
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Supplementary files will be published alongside the paper on the journal website and posted on
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4
please ensure these are accurate and informative so that your files can be found in searches. Files
on figshare will be made available approximately one week before the accompanying article so
that the supplementary material can be attributed a unique DOI.
Once again, thank you for submitting your manuscript to Royal Society Open Science. The
chemistry content of Royal Society Open Science is published in collaboration with the Royal
Society of Chemistry. I look forward to receiving your revision. If you have any questions at all,
please do not hesitate to get in touch.
Best wishes,
Liisa Niitsoo
Publishing Editor, Journals
Royal Society Open Science
Royal Society of Chemistry
Tel +44 (0) 1223 432167
[email protected]
On behalf of the Subject Editor Dr Anthony Stace and the Associate Editor Professor Claire
Carmalt.
**********************************************
RSC Subject Editor:
Comments to the Author:
(There are no comments.)
RSC Associate Editor:
Comments to the Author:
This is an interesting paper and the authors have addressed most of the comments form the
referees with the exception of EDX and statistical analysis. Further characterisation of the
materials should be provided - if EDX isn't available perhaps another technique such as XRD. Did
UV/Vis show anything? The paper also needs a careful read though to correct grammatical
errors.
**********************************************
Reviewer comments to Author:
Reviewer: 1
Comments to the Author(s)
Please check for language use throughout the manuscript.
Reviewer: 2
Comments to the Author(s)
There are few points to concern:
•
The authors claimed that this study could use in biomedical applications in the
introduction part, however, the cell cytotoxicity and cell viability haven’t been performed.
•
The authors mentioned in Mechanical Testing (Results and Discussions part) that “silver
loading dramatically increased the ultimate stress and slightly reduced strain at break”. And the
last sentence in this section was “it can be concluded that silver chloride can be used to impart
biocidal function to the PCL membranes with improved mechanical properties”. Without
statistical analysis, how could the authors confirm the significant difference between the samples?
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5
Could the authors describe the number of samples for tensile strength testing and add the errors
bar to the bar chart for Figure 4b?
Author's Response to Decision Letter for (RSOS-160911)
See Appendix A.
Decision letter (RSOS-160911.R1)
05-Jan-2017
Dear Dr Bhullar:
Title: Fabrication and Characterization of Electrospun Poly(e-caprolactone) Fibrous Membrane
with Antibacterial FunctionalityManuscript ID: RSOS-160911.R1
It is a pleasure to accept your manuscript in its current form for publication in Royal Society
Open Science. The chemistry content of Royal Society Open Science is published in collaboration
with the Royal Society of Chemistry.
The comments of the reviewer(s) who reviewed your manuscript are included at the end of this
email.
Thank you for your fine contribution. On behalf of the Editors of Royal Society Open Science and
the Royal Society of Chemistry, I look forward to your continued contributions to the Journal.
Yours sincerely,
On behalf of the Subject Editor Dr Anthony Stace and the Associate Editor Professor Claire
Carmalt.
********
RSC Associate Editor
Comments to the Author:
(There are no comments.)
*********
Reviewer(s)' Comments to Author:
AppendixDownloaded
A
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Fabrication and Characterization of Electrospun PCL Fibrous Membrane with
Antibacterial Functionality
Summary
The manuscript is well written reporting the electrospinning of poly (ε-caprolactone) nanofibers
containing Silver chloride particles for antibacterial applications. In addition, the authors have
studied some of the thermomechanical and morphological outcomes of the silver chloride PCL
nanofibers. Electrospun PCL nanofibers containing Silver chloride particles, similar to other
additives, showed no changes in melting patterns, while due to presumably nucleating effect of
Silver chloride particles, changes in crystallization patterns were observed, indicating
interactions between the PCL and silver chloride particles. Furthermore, the authors observed the
influence of loaded silver chloride particles on morphology of nanofibers with larger loading of
Silver chloride resulting in beaded structure. Moreover, presence of Silver chloride resulted in
remarkable antibacterial functionalities as shown by resistance to S.aureus and E.coli 0157:H7,
while no such effect was seen for neat PCL nanofibers.
Recommendation: This reviewer is of the view that the report can be accepted with major
revision (mostly writing part).
General comments: The authors attempt to fabricate electrospun PCL nanofibers containing
varying loading of silver chloride particles using chloroform/methanol solvent system. Several
studies have shown poor conductivity of PCL, similar to other low-conductive polymers, to have
a major impact in their electrospinning. One way to overcome this drawback is to have a cosolvent with higher conductivity. However, commonly used co-solvents such as chloroform,
dichloromethane, tetrahydrofuran commonly used for this purpose have poor conductivity as
well, thus complicating the electrospinning process. Hence, electrospinning of PCL is typically
carried from a binary solvent mixture containing a non-solvent, for example, DMF, that has
higher
conductivity
(DOI:
dx.doi.org/10.1021/bm501158w),
(DOI: 10.1002/app.42782),
(DOI:10.1016/j.polymer.2015.08.045) But addition of co-solvents (for instance, DMF) causes
difficulty in their removal as they have a high boiling points. However, a recent study showed
the possibility of electrospinning PCL from a single solvent (chloroform) with addition of salts
that
can
be
easily
removed
after
the
completion
of
electrospinning
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(DOI: 10.1021/acs.biomac.5b01379). But this methodology has several drawbacks as well with
first and foremost being that DMF has a higher boiling point. If the salt system is used instead,
their remnants in the nanofibers might cause toxicity.
Since several strategies exists to overcome the difficulties in electrospinning PCL, advantages of
choosing the chloroform/methanol needs to be specifically mentioned. Also, as the authors report
that the nanofibers containing silver chloride particles have a beaded structure, is that due to the
poor electrical conductivity of the solvent systems used? A good discussion along the solvent
system by utilizing these examples would be great and provide a strong follow up work.
With regards to the thermal analyses (DSC and TGA), the authors performed analyses on all the
pertinent samples, but did not elaborate much on why the addition of AgCl particles caused
nucleating effects on the PCL? In these two references (DOI: dx.doi.org/10.1021/bm501158w),
(DOI: 10.1002/app.42782), the authors studied addition of cyclodextrins and their subsequent
effects on the crystallinity, crystallizability of PCL nanofibers. Possibly would be helpful to this
study for improving the discussion.
Likewise, the discussion part on the mechanical properties is far too inadequate. In addition, as
the authors intend to study the mechanical properties of presumably nucleated PCL nanofibers
with the addition of AgCl particles, the intermolecular interaction between the two molecules
could be at play. As this reviewer sees a trend in increased modulus and strength with decreased
elongation, this reference (DOI:10.1016/j.polymer.2015.08.045) could be of help to understand
and discuss the intermolecular interaction of the nucleants (in this case, AgCl) with the polymer
matrix.
Specific comments:
Introduction:
1. Please remove second paragraph third line (PCL offers potential for tissue engineering of
bone, cartilage and scaffolds which have been manufactured using a variety of techniques
including fused). It is redundant information and is not applicable to study as the authors are not
discussing orthopaedic tissues.
2. Throughout the manuscript change the term “ÐCS” to “DSC”.
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3. In this section provide some examples of PCL nanofibers containing Silver based materials for
biocidal applications. The readers would then be able to appreciate the essence of this great
work.