Department of Materials Engineering and Industrial Technologies, University of Trento, Via Mesiano 77, 38100 Trento, Italy.
J Biomater Sci Polym Ed. 2009;20(13):1875-97. doi: 10.1163/156856208X399936.
Silkworm-derived fibroin, which constitutes the core of the silk filament, is an attractive protein-polymer for biomedical applications. Fibroin can also be processed into a variety of 2-D and 3-D formats to match morphological and structural features to specific applications. The focus of the present research was to correlate the structure of silk fibroin-derived biomaterials with plasma protein adsorption, platelet activation and inflammatory cell (THP-1 cell line) adhesion and activation. The amino-acid composition of the two types of silk studied influenced the crystallinity of the films, hydrophobicity, surface roughness and biological interactions. Protein adsorption was lower on samples with the higher crystallinity and hydrophobicity, in particular the chemotactic factors (C3a, C5a, C3b), while other proteins such as fibrinogen were comparable in terms of adsorption. As a consequence, platelets and immune cells responded differently to the various films obtained by following different processing protocols and stabilized by different methods (methanol or water vapour) in terms of their adherence, activation, and the secretion of inflammatory mediators by monocytes. The data presented here demonstrate that bioactivity can be influenced by changing the chemistry, such as the source of silk protein, or by the specific process used in the preparation of the materials used to assess biological responses.
丝素蛋白是构成丝纤维核心的物质，它是一种有吸引力的蛋白质聚合物，可用于生物医学应用。丝素蛋白也可以加工成各种 2-D 和 3-D 格式，以匹配特定应用的形态和结构特征。本研究的重点是将丝素衍生生物材料的结构与血浆蛋白吸附、血小板激活和炎症细胞（THP-1 细胞系）黏附和激活相关联。研究的两种丝的氨基酸组成影响了薄膜的结晶度、疏水性、表面粗糙度和生物相互作用。结晶度和疏水性较高的样品上的蛋白质吸附较低，特别是趋化因子（C3a、C5a、C3b），而其他蛋白质（如纤维蛋白原）的吸附则相当。因此，血小板和免疫细胞对通过不同处理方案获得的不同薄膜的反应不同，这些薄膜通过不同的方法（甲醇或水蒸气）稳定，在黏附、激活和单核细胞分泌炎症介质方面。这里呈现的数据表明，通过改变化学性质，如丝蛋白的来源，或通过用于评估生物反应的材料制备中使用的特定工艺，可以影响生物活性。
