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Biomedical applications of chemically-modified silk fibroin.

ABSTRACT: Silk proteins belong to a class of unique, high molecular weight, block copolymer-like proteins that have found widespread use in biomaterials and regenerative medicine. The useful features of these proteins, including self-assembly, robust mechanical properties, biocompatibility and biodegradability can be enhanced through a variety of chemical modifications. These modifications provide chemical handles for the attachment of growth factors, cell binding domains and other polymers to silk, expanding the range of cell and tissue engineering applications attainable. This review focuses on the chemical reactions that have been used to modify the amino acids in silk proteins, and describes their utility in biomedical applications.

SUBMITTER: Murphy AR

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2790051 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Biomedical applications of chemically-modified silk fibroin.

Murphy Amanda R AR Kaplan David L DL

Journal of materials chemistry 20090601 36

Silk proteins belong to a class of unique, high molecular weight, block copolymer-like proteins that have found widespread use in biomaterials and regenerative medicine. The useful features of these proteins, including self-assembly, robust mechanical properties, biocompatibility and biodegradability can be enhanced through a variety of chemical modifications. These modifications provide chemical handles for the attachment of growth factors, cell binding domains and other polymers to silk, expan ...[more]

PMID: 20161439

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Project description:The continuous real-time monitoring of human health using biomedical sensing devices has recently become a promising approach to the realization of distant health monitoring. In this paper, the piezoelectric characteristics of the silk fibroin (SF) natural polymer were analyzed as the material used for obtaining sensing information in the application of distance health monitoring. To enhance the SF piezoelectricity, this paper presents the development of a novel SF-based sensor realized by combining SF with different carbon nanofiber (CNF) densities, and for such newly developed SF-based sensors comprehensive performance analyses have been performed. Versatile methods including the scanning electron microscope, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, Raman and X-ray diffraction measurements and impedance analysis were used to study the morphologic, mechanical and electrical properties of the developed SF-based sensor. The SF with CNF samples was analyzed for three different pressure loads (40 N, 60 N and 80 N) in 500 compression test cycles. The analyses thoroughly describe how combining natural polymer SF with different CNF densities impacts the piezoelectricity and mechanical strength of the proposed SF-based sensor. The developed piezoelectric SF-based sensors were further tested on humans in real medical applications to detect generated piezoelectric voltage in versatile body movements. The maximum piezoelectricity equal to 2.95 ± 0.03 V was achieved for the jumping movement, and the SF sample with a CNF density equal to 0.4% was tested. Obtained results also show that the proposed SF-based sensor has an appropriate piezoelectric sensitivity for each of the analyzed body movement types, and that the proposed SF-based sensor can be applied in real medical applications as a biomedical sensing device. The proposed SF-based sensor’s practical implementation is further confirmed by the results of cytotoxicity analyses, which show that the developed sensor has a non-toxic and biocompatible nature and can be efficiently used in skin contact for biomedical wearable health monitoring applications.

Project description:The development of aerogels with improved mechanical properties, to expand their utility in high-performance applications, is still a big challenge. Besides fossil-fuel based polymers that have been extensively utilized as platforms to enhance the mechanical strength of silsesquioxane and silica-based aerogels, using green biopolymers from various sustainable renewable resources are currently drawing significant attention. In this work, we process silk fibroin (SF) proteins, extracted from silkworm cocoons, with organically substituted alkoxysilanes in an entirely aqueous based solution via a successive sol-gel approach, and show for the first time that it is possible to produce homogeneous interpenetrated (IPN) polymethylsilsesquioxane (PMSQ)-SF hybrid aerogel monoliths with significantly improved mechanical properties. Emphasis is given to an improvement of the molecular interaction of the two components (SF biopolymer and PMSQ) using a silane coupling agent and to the design of pore structure. We succeeded in developing a novel class of compressible, light-weight, and hierarchically organized meso-macroporous PMSQ-SF IPN hybrid aerogels by carefully controlling the sol-gel parameters at a molecular level. Typically, these aerogels have a compressive strength (δ max) of up to 14 MPa, together with high flexibility in both compression and bending, compressibility up to 80% strain with very low bulk density (ρ b) of 0.08-0.23 g cm-3. By considering these promising properties, the superhydrophobic/oleophilic PMSQ-SF aerogel hybrids exhibited a high competency for selective absorption of a variety of organic pollutants (absorption capacities ∼500-2600 g g-1 %) from water and acted as a high-performance filter for continuous water/oil separation. Moreover, they have demonstrated impressive thermal insulation performance (λ = 0.032-0.044 W m-1 K-1) with excellent fire retardancy and self-extinguishing capabilities. Therefore, the PMSQ-SF aerogel hybrids would be a new class of open porous material and are expected to further extend the practical applications of this class of porous compounds.

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Biomedical applications of chemically-modified silk fibroin.

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Biomedical applications of chemically-modified silk fibroin.

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