Electrospun Silk Fibroin Mats for Tissue Engineering

Abstract

Processing Silk Fibroin (SF) with electrospinning (ES) offers a very attractive opportunity for producing a variety of 2D and 3D matrices with great potential for tissue regeneration and repair due to the superior biocompatibility and mechanical properties of SF. Different combinations of ES parameters were explored to investigate the best experimental set‐up related to the dimension and uniformity of the fibers in the electrospun silk fibroin (ES‐SF) mats. Using SEM it was found that the ES‐SF mats contain uniform fibers with a diameter in the nanometric range obtained by electrospinning a 7.5 % w/v SF solution in formic acid, with an electric field of 2.4 kV/cm and a spinneret‐collector distance of 10 cm. FT‐IR and DSC analyses were performed to investigate the structure of the ES‐SF mats before and after immersion in methanol for different times (5, 10, and 15 min). The methanol treatment was able to promote the crystallization of SF by conformational transition of random coil and other poorly ordered conformations (turns and bends) to the β‐sheet structure. The degree of crystallinity was enhanced as shown by the trend of both the FT‐IR crystallinity index and the melting/decomposition peak temperature (from DSC). To study the cytocompatibility of ES‐SF mats, tests with L929 murine fibroblasts were carried out. Samples were seeded with the cells and incubated for 1, 3, and 7 days at 37 °C. At each time point, SEM investigations and Alamar blue tests were performed. The SEM images showed cell adhesion and proliferation just after 1 day and cell confluence at 7 days. Alamar blue test demonstrated that there were very low differences between cell viability on ES‐SF mats and the tissue culture plastic control.

Decellularized silk fibroin scaffold primed with adipose mesenchymal stromal cells improves wound healing in diabetic mice

“…[27]. Five-mm-diameter SF patches were cut by using a sterile 5-mm punch biopsy tool (KLS Martin cod.…”

A Review of Structure Construction of Silk Fibroin Biomaterials from Single Structures to Multi-Level Structures

“…Electrospinning is the most commonly used technique to prepare SF mats due to its flexibility and versatility. The morphology and secondary structure of SF mats can be adjusted by tuning the electrospinning voltage, SF concentration, flow rate, and receive distance [60,61]. At low SF concentrations, clustered or beaded fibers may occur in the collector.…”

Electrospun silk sericin nanofibers for biomedical applications

“…The characterization of the molecular structure and the conformation of a nanofi ber can be done by Fourier transform infra-red (FT-IR) or Raman spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques (Marelli et al ., 2010;Wang et al ., 2003;Zhang et al ., 2010). The molecular structure of nanofi bers can also be characterized by optical birefringence, wide angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD), small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) and thermogravimetric (TG) analysis (Alessandrino et al ., 2008;Chahal et al ., 2012;Katti et al ., 2004;Zhang et al ., 2009b). Many researchers have utilized energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) to quantify the elemental composition of fi ber-based materials (Jia et al ., 2007;Jin et al ., 2002).…”