National Engineering Laboratory for Modern Silk, College of Textile and Clothing Engineering, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, People's Republic of China.
Biomacromolecules. 2012 Nov 12;13(11):3723-9. doi: 10.1021/bm301197h. Epub 2012 Oct 11.
Substrate mechanical properties have remarkable influences on cell behavior and tissue regeneration. Although salt-leached silk scaffolds have been used in tissue engineering, applications in softer tissue regeneration can be encumbered with excessive stiffness. In the present study, silk-bound water interactions were regulated by controlling processing to allow the preparation of salt-leached porous scaffolds with tunable mechanical properties. Increasing silk-bound water interactions resulted in reduced silk II (β-sheet crystal) formation during salt-leaching, which resulted in a modulus decrease in the scaffolds. The microstructures as well as degradation behavior were also changed, implying that this water control and salt-leaching approach can be used to achieve tunable mechanical properties. Considering the utility of silk in various fields of biomedicine, the results point to a new approach to generate silk scaffolds with controllable properties to better mimic soft tissues by combining scaffold preparation methods and silk self-assembly in aqueous solutions.
基底的机械性能对细胞行为和组织再生有显著影响。尽管脱盐丝支架已被用于组织工程，但在较软的组织再生中的应用可能会受到过度刚性的阻碍。在本研究中，通过控制处理来调节丝结合水的相互作用，从而允许制备具有可调节机械性能的脱盐多孔支架。增加丝结合水的相互作用会导致在脱盐过程中形成较少的丝 II（β-折叠晶体），从而导致支架的模量降低。微观结构和降解行为也发生了变化，这意味着这种水控制和脱盐方法可用于实现可调节的机械性能。考虑到丝在生物医学各个领域的实用性，这些结果表明了一种新的方法，即通过结合支架制备方法和丝在水溶液中的自组装，来生成具有可控性能的丝支架，以更好地模拟软组织。
