Zhu Tianhao, Cai Guolong, Zhao Weikun, Yao Xiang, Zhang Yaopeng
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Fiber Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Nano-Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, P. R. China.
Biomacromolecules. 2025 Feb 10;26(2):1305-1319. doi: 10.1021/acs.biomac.4c01676. Epub 2025 Jan 22.
Silk fibroin (SF) hydrogels are widely used in three-dimensional (3D) cell culture and tissue repair. Despite their importance, few studies have focused on regulating their degradation and further revealing the effects of the degradation process on encapsulated cell behaviors. Herein, SF hydrogels with equivalent initial properties and different degradation rates were prepared by adjusting the ratios between the hydrogel-encapsulated normal SF microspheres (MS) and enzyme-loaded SF microspheres (MS). Further, cell experiments revealed that moderately accelerating the hydrogel degradation obviously improved the proliferation of MSCs during 7 days of culture. Slightly accelerating the hydrogel degradation promoted MSC chondrogenesis. However, too rapid of a hydrogel degradation was unfavorable for these cell behaviors. The relevant studies are expected to provide useful strategies for regulating SF hydrogel degradation and also afford new references for the development of excellent SF hydrogels and other protein-based biomaterials for cartilage regeneration.
丝素蛋白（SF）水凝胶广泛应用于三维（3D）细胞培养和组织修复。尽管其很重要，但很少有研究专注于调控其降解并进一步揭示降解过程对包封细胞行为的影响。在此，通过调整水凝胶包封的正常SF微球（MS）与载酶SF微球（MS）之间的比例，制备了具有等效初始性质和不同降解速率的SF水凝胶。此外，细胞实验表明，适度加速水凝胶降解在培养7天期间明显改善了间充质干细胞（MSC）的增殖。轻微加速水凝胶降解促进了MSC软骨形成。然而，水凝胶降解过快对这些细胞行为不利。相关研究有望为调控SF水凝胶降解提供有用策略，并为开发用于软骨再生的优异SF水凝胶和其他基于蛋白质的生物材料提供新的参考。
