Department of Fiber System Engineering, Dankook University, Yongin 16890, Republic of Korea.
Center for Advanced Specialty Chemicals, Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology, Ulssan 44412, Republic of Korea.
Biomacromolecules. 2021 Oct 11;22(10):4337-4346. doi: 10.1021/acs.biomac.1c00881. Epub 2021 Sep 13.
Silk contains an adhesive glycoprotein, silk sericin, in which silk fibroins can be enfolded and chemically stabilized. Silk sericin is gaining importance as the material for the creation of functional bioscaffolds. However, the assembly of silk sericin is generally limited to the blend of polymers or proteins due to its inherent poor mechanical strength. Here, we report a simple macroscopic controlled assembly of silk sericin fibers based on their secondary structure via wet-spinning. In addition, plasticization of silk sericin using glycerol immobilized with glutaraldehyde was found to induce dimensional stability, affording stable linear fibers with self-adhesion. Furthermore, cyclo-phenylalanine nanowires were incorporated into the silk sericin dope for a practical demonstration of their potential in artificial silk production with superstructure formation. The physicochemical characteristics of the spun fibers have also been elucidated using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, electron microscopy, tensile test, differential scanning calorimetry, and 2D X-ray diffraction.
丝中含有一种粘性糖蛋白丝胶，丝素纤维可以包裹在其中，并通过化学方式稳定下来。丝胶作为功能性生物支架材料的重要性日益凸显。然而，由于其固有的机械强度差，丝胶的组装通常仅限于聚合物或蛋白质的共混。在这里，我们通过湿法纺丝报告了一种基于其二级结构的简单宏观控制的丝胶纤维组装方法。此外，用戊二醛固定化甘油对丝胶进行增塑发现可以诱导尺寸稳定性，从而获得具有自粘性的稳定线性纤维。此外，将环苯丙氨酸纳米线掺入丝胶纺丝液中，为其在具有超结构形成的人造丝生产中的潜在应用提供了实际范例。还使用傅里叶变换红外光谱、电子显微镜、拉伸试验、差示扫描量热法和二维 X 射线衍射对纺丝纤维的理化特性进行了阐明。
