Microbial transglutaminase (mTG) and mushroom tyrosinase (MT) are used to crosslink B. mori silk fibroin/gelatin (SF/G) films. Crosslinked and uncrosslinked SF/G films show no phase separation. The thermal behavior and the conformational structure of SF/G films are strongly affected by blending and enzymatic treatment. Formation of high thermally stable crosslinked macromolecular species is observed, suggesting the occurrence of strong intermolecular interactions between the two polymers as confirmed by FT-Raman spectroscopy. Preliminary in vitro tests show that MT-crosslinked blends with G amounts ≥40% and mTG-crosslinked SF/G 60/40 films support C2C12 cardiomyocyte adhesion and proliferation.
The silk fi lament spun by the silkworm (Bombyx mori) is composed of two fi broin fi laments held together by a cementing layer of sericin. Fibroin and sericin account for about 75 w% and 25 w% of the raw silk, respectively. The degumming process involves removing the sericin layer prior to dyeing. Generally, it makes use of a solution containing soap, synthetic detergents or proteolytic enzymes. A set of 50 protease degummed silk fabrics (crêpe) with different weight losses were analysed by means of near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy. A correlation between degumming loss (SE = 0.312%) and NIR spectra was obtained using the principal component regression (PCR) algorithm. The correlation obtained had a coeffi cient of determination (R 2 ) of 0.97 and a standard error of calibration (SEC) of 1.6% for a mean value of 14.6%. In the second part of the study, NIR spectroscopy was used to determine the concentration of sericin in solution. A set of sericin aqueous solutions ranging from 20 g L -1 to 200 g L -1 was prepared and the spectra were acquired in transfl ectance mode between 10000-3700 cm -1 and correlated with corresponding sericin concentration values. The correlation obtained between specifi ed sericin concentration values and values estimated by NIR spectra had the statistics R 2 of 0.99 and SEC of 4.9 g L -1 for an average sericin concentration of 103.8 g L -1 . The assignment of characteristic NIR spectral bands of sericin and fi broin was made.
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