Department of Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences and Tissue Engineering Research Center, Academy of Military Medical Sciences , 27 TaipingRoad, Beijing 100850, People's Republic of China.
State Key Laboratory of Microbial Metabolism, Joint International Research Laboratory of Metabolic & Developmental Sciences, and School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University , 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200240, People's Republic of China.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2017 May 3;9(17):14665-14676. doi: 10.1021/acsami.7b01752. Epub 2017 Apr 20.
A variety of devices used for biomedical engineering have been fabricated using protein polymer because of their excellent properties, such as strength, toughness, biocompatibility, and biodegradability. In this study, we fabricated an optical waveguide using genetically engineered spider silk protein. This method has two significant advantages: (1) recombinant spider silk optical waveguide exhibits excellent optical and biological properties and (2) biosynthesis of spider silk protein can overcome the limitation to the research on spider silk optical waveguide due to the low yield of natural spider silk. In detail, two kinds of protein-based optical waveguides made from recombinant spider silk protein and regenerative silkworm silk protein were successfully prepared. Results suggested that the recombinant spider silk optical waveguide showed a smoother surface and a higher refractive index when compared with regenerative silkworm silk protein. The optical loss of recombinant spider silk optical waveguide was 0.8 ± 0.1 dB/cm in air and 1.9 ± 0.3 dB/cm in mouse muscles, which were significantly lower than those of regenerative silkworm silk optical waveguide. Moreover, recombinant spider silk optical waveguide can meet the demand to guide and efficiently deliver light through biological tissue. In addition, recombinant spider silk optical waveguide showed low toxicity to cells in vitro and low-level inflammatory reaction with surrounding tissue in vivo. Therefore, recombinant spider silk optical waveguide is a promising implantable device to guide and deliver light with low loss.
各种用于生物医学工程的设备已经使用蛋白质聚合物制造，因为它们具有出色的性能，如强度、韧性、生物相容性和可生物降解性。在这项研究中，我们使用基因工程蜘蛛丝蛋白制造了一种光波导。这种方法有两个显著的优点：（1）重组蜘蛛丝光波导表现出优异的光学和生物学性质；（2）蜘蛛丝蛋白的生物合成可以克服由于天然蜘蛛丝产量低而对蜘蛛丝光波导研究的限制。具体来说，我们成功地制备了两种基于蛋白质的光波导，分别由重组蜘蛛丝蛋白和再生家蚕丝蛋白制成。结果表明，与再生家蚕丝蛋白相比，重组蜘蛛丝光波导具有更光滑的表面和更高的折射率。在空气中，重组蜘蛛丝光波导的光损耗为 0.8±0.1 dB/cm，在小鼠肌肉中为 1.9±0.3 dB/cm，明显低于再生家蚕丝蛋白光波导。此外，重组蜘蛛丝光波导可以满足通过生物组织引导和有效传输光的要求。此外，重组蜘蛛丝光波导在体外对细胞表现出低毒性，在体内对周围组织表现出低水平的炎症反应。因此，重组蜘蛛丝光波导是一种很有前途的低损耗植入式光导和传输设备。
