Department of Chemical Sciences, University of Napoli Federico II, Complesso Universitario Monte S. Angelo, via Cintia 4, I-80126 Napoli, Italy.
J Mater Chem B. 2020 May 28;8(20):4412-4418. doi: 10.1039/d0tb00623h. Epub 2020 May 6.
The fungal pathways of melanin synthesis have so far been little considered as a source of bio-inspiration in the field of functional materials, despite the interesting properties exhibited by Ascomycetes melanins from 1,8-dihydroxynaphthalene (1,8-DHN), including the ability to shield organisms from ionizing radiation. Herein, the processing techniques and characterizations of mycomelanin thin films obtained from the solid state polymerization of 1,8-DHN is reported for the first time. Overall, the results highlighted the role of synthetic mycomelanin thin films as a prototype of next generation bioinspired interfaces featuring high structural regularity and ultrasmooth morphology, high robustness against peroxidative bleaching and adhesion under water conditions, good biocompatibility and unprecedented effects in inducing the spontaneous differentiation of embryonic stem cells prevalently towards the endodermal lineages in the absence of added factors. These data open up new avenues towards the applications of this biomaterial in the fields of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.
真菌黑色素合成途径迄今为止在功能材料领域的生物灵感来源方面还很少被考虑，尽管来自 1,8-二羟基萘（1,8-DHN）的子囊菌黑色素表现出有趣的特性，包括能够保护生物体免受电离辐射。本文首次报道了通过 1,8-DHN 的固态聚合获得的菌黑素薄膜的加工技术和特性。总的来说，研究结果强调了合成菌黑素薄膜作为下一代仿生界面的原型的作用，其具有高度的结构规则性和超光滑形态、对过氧化物漂白的高稳定性以及在水条件下的附着力、良好的生物相容性和在诱导胚胎干细胞向内胚层谱系自发分化方面的前所未有的作用，而无需添加因子。这些数据为该生物材料在组织工程和再生医学领域的应用开辟了新的途径。
