Preparation and Characterization of Natural Silk Fibroin Hydrogel for Protein Drug Delivery

Abstract

In recent years, hydrogels have been widely used as drug carriers, especially in the area of protein delivery. The natural silk fibroin produced from cocoons of the Bombyx mori silkworm possesses excellent biocompatibility, significant bioactivity, and biodegradability. Therefore, silk fibroin-based hydrogels are arousing widespread interest in biomedical research. In this study, a process for extracting natural silk fibroin from raw silk textile yarns was established, and three aqueous solutions of silk fibroin with different molecular weight distributions were successfully prepared by controlling the degumming time. Silk fibroin was dispersed in the aqueous solution as “spherical” aggregate particles, and the smaller particles continuously accumulated into large particles. Finally, a silk fibroin hydrogel network was formed. A rheological analysis showed that as the concentration of the silk fibroin hydrogel increased its storage modulus increased significantly. The degradation behavior of silk fibroin hydrogel in different media verified its excellent stability, and the prepared silk fibroin hydrogel had good biocompatibility and an excellent drug-loading capacity. After the protein model drug BSA was loaded, the cumulative drug release within 12 h reached 80%. We hope that these investigations will promote the potential utilities of silk fibroin hydrogels in clinical medicine.

Biomimetic Platelet Nanomotors for Site-Specific Thrombolysis and Ischemic Injury Alleviation

“…The sufficient functional sites (for instance, carboxyl, phosphate, and amino groups) and hydrophobic and hydrophilic moieties on the coarse surface of PLT − promoted the deposition of PEDOT, allowing peptide drugs to graft directly on PLT to fabricate and coassemble peptide@PEDOT@PLT. As established, the BSA peptide is widely used as the model bioactive peptide molecule for formulation and in vitro release studies. , In this study, the BSA represents the P6 model peptide drug and was used in the formulation test for optimization. The particle size of formulations prepared from (BSA) peptide@PEDOT with a feeding weight ratio of 1:1, 1:2, 1:3, 1:4, 1:5, 1:50, and 1:100 w/w in PLT (1.5 × 10 9 /mL) was decreased as shown in Figure a.…”

Fabrication of Silk Fibroin‐Derived Fibrous Scaffold for Biomedical Frontiers

“…When SF is isolated from natural silk in an aqueous solution, it forms spherical aggregate particles that progressively aggregate into a networked hydrogel with significantly improved storage modulus at higher concentrations. When loaded with the protein model drug bovine serum albumin, the resulting SF hydrogel demonstrated excellent stability, biocompatibility, and a remarkable drug‐loading capacity, with 80% of the cumulative drug released within 12 h. [ 143 ] The ionotropic‐gelation process has been used to create nanoparticles of chitosan loaded with dexamethasone sodium phosphate (DEX‐CSNPs), which are then placed into the SF hydrogel (SFH) to create a drug‐releasing system. This system demonstrated favorable properties such as reduced pore size, increased porosity, improved water absorption, and extended DEX release over 16 days, making it a suitable option for drug delivery applications.…”

Application of Silk-Fibroin-Based Hydrogels in Tissue Engineering

“…The cocoon is cut into thin slices and boiled in a sodium carbonate solution several times to obtain degummed silk. The degummed silk is then dissolved in a lithium bromide solution (9.3 mol/L) and subjected to a series of steps, including dialysis, recovery of high-concentration salt agents, filtration, weight measurement, and concentration determination, to obtain water-soluble SF or other products, which are stored at low temperatures (4-7 • C) [3,18]. Other high-concentration salts, such as calcium chloride or some alkaline organic solvents, can also be used to degum SF [19,20].…”