Chinese sesame stick-inspired nano-fibrous scaffolds for tumor therapy and skin tissue reconstruction

Surgery is a common treatment to remove the solid skin tumors. It is of great importance to eliminate the remaining tumor cells and achieve the simultaneous tissue reconstruction after surgery for improving life quality of cancer patients. Inspired by the designing strategy and fabrication method of Chinese sesame sticks, a Chinese sesame stick-like scaffold is developed by spin coating of CaCuSi4O10 nanoparticles (NPs) on the surface of electrospun fibers for tumor therapy and skin tissue reconstruction. The CaCuSi4O10 NPs can transform near infrared light energy into heat energy, showing the photothermal conversion efficiency of 33.8%. After coating of the CaCuSi4O10 NPs on the fibers, the prepared scaffolds exhibit the Chinese sesame stick-like structure and achieve bifunction with both tumor killing and skin tissue reconstruction capacities. The CaCuSi4O10 NPs endow the scaffolds with photothermal ablation potential to rapidly kill the in vitro tumor cells. Furthermore, Chinese sesame stick-like scaffolds effectively inhibit in vivo tumor growth at the early stage and accelerate healing of cancer surgery-caused wounds at the later stage in tumor-bearing mice. Additionally, the composite scaffolds promote chronic wound healing by stimulating in vivo angiogenesis and re-epithelization, harnessing locally release of bioactive Cu2+ and SiO44- ions from the CaCuSi4O10 NPs. Therefore, the Chinese sesame stick-inspired scaffolds may lay a solid foundation for clinical treatment of cancers and cancer surgery-induced tissue damage.