Yan Chi, Liang Jianwei, Fang Hao, Meng Xizhi, Chen Jiale, Zhong Zhi, Liu Qin, Hu Hongmei, Zhang Xiaoning
State Key Laboratory of Silkworm Genome Biology, College of Sericulture, Textile and Biomass Sciences, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China.
Key Laboratory of Mariculture and Enhancement of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Zhoushan 316021, China.
Gels. 2021 Feb 20;7(1):23. doi: 10.3390/gels7010023.
Silk sericin (SS) produced by is normally discarded as waste in manufacturing processes, which causes environmental pollution. Therefore, investigating the use of silk sericin has economic and environmental benefits. As a three-dimensional structure, the sericin-derived hydrogel was explored in different applications. However, many developed gelation procedures raise concerns regarding safety, cost, and duration of gelation time. In this work, "thiol-ene" click chemistry was used to quickly and controllably prepare an SS-derived hydrogel to resolve these early concerns. Then, berberine was loaded and used as a model for investigating the drug-release profiles of the prepared hydrogel. The experimental results revealed that this hydrogel is eligible for a long-term release of berberine. Throughout the antibacterial experiments, the released berberine maintained its antibacterial activity. Our work expands the application of SS in biomedical industries in an eco-friendly way. Furthermore, the discussed strategy could provide a reference for the subsequent development of SS-derived materials.
家蚕生产的丝胶蛋白（SS）在制造过程中通常作为废物被丢弃，这会造成环境污染。因此，研究丝胶蛋白的用途具有经济和环境效益。作为一种三维结构，丝胶蛋白衍生的水凝胶在不同应用中得到了探索。然而，许多已开发的凝胶化程序引发了人们对安全性、成本和凝胶化时间持续时间的担忧。在这项工作中，使用“硫醇-烯”点击化学快速且可控地制备了一种丝胶蛋白衍生的水凝胶，以解决这些早期问题。然后，负载黄连素并将其用作研究制备的水凝胶药物释放曲线的模型。实验结果表明，这种水凝胶适合长期释放黄连素。在整个抗菌实验中，释放的黄连素保持了其抗菌活性。我们的工作以环保的方式扩展了丝胶蛋白在生物医学行业中的应用。此外，所讨论的策略可为丝胶蛋白衍生材料的后续开发提供参考。
