Department of Pharmacy Practice, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand.
AAPS PharmSciTech. 2011 Jun;12(2):771-81. doi: 10.1208/s12249-011-9641-y. Epub 2011 Jun 14.
Protein-based biomaterials respond differently to sterilization methods. Since protein is a complex structure, heat, or irradiation may result in the loss of its physical or biological properties. Recent investigations have shown that sericin, a degumming silk protein, can be successfully formed into a 3-D scaffolds after mixing with other polymers which can be applied in skin tissue engineering. The objective of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of ethanol, ethylene oxide (EtO) and gamma irradiation on the sterilization of sericin scaffolds. The influence of these sterilization methods on the physical properties such as pore size, scaffold dimensions, swelling and mechanical properties, as well as the amount of sericin released from sericin/polyvinyl alcohol/glycerin scaffolds, were also investigated. Ethanol treatment was ineffective for sericin scaffold sterilization whereas gamma irradiation was the most effective technique for scaffold sterilization. Moreover, ethanol also caused significant changes in pore size resulting from shrinkage of the scaffold. Gamma-irradiated samples exhibited the highest swelling property, but they also lost the greatest amount of weight after immersion for 24 h compared with scaffolds obtained from other sterilization methods. The results of the maximum stress test and Young's modulus showed that gamma-irradiated and ethanol-treated scaffolds are more flexible than the EtO-treated and untreated scaffolds. The amount of sericin released, which was related to its collagen promoting effect, was highest from the gamma-irradiated scaffold. The results of this study indicate that gamma irradiation should have the greatest potential for sterilizing sericin scaffolds for skin tissue engineering.
蛋白质基生物材料对灭菌方法的反应不同。由于蛋白质是一种复杂的结构，热或辐照可能导致其物理或生物特性的丧失。最近的研究表明，丝胶，一种脱胶丝蛋白，在与其他聚合物混合后可以成功地形成三维支架，可应用于皮肤组织工程。本研究的目的是研究乙醇、环氧乙烷（EtO）和伽马辐照对丝胶支架灭菌的效果。还研究了这些灭菌方法对物理性能的影响，如孔径、支架尺寸、溶胀和机械性能，以及丝胶/聚乙烯醇/甘油支架中丝胶的释放量。乙醇处理对丝胶支架的灭菌无效，而伽马辐照是支架灭菌最有效的技术。此外，乙醇还会导致支架孔径因收缩而发生显著变化。伽马辐照样品表现出最高的溶胀性能，但与其他灭菌方法获得的支架相比，它们在浸泡 24 小时后失重最大。最大应力测试和杨氏模量的结果表明，伽马辐照和乙醇处理的支架比 EtO 处理和未处理的支架更具弹性。与促进胶原蛋白的效果有关的丝胶释放量最高来自伽马辐照的支架。本研究结果表明，伽马辐照在皮肤组织工程中对丝胶支架进行灭菌具有最大的潜力。
