Wired silk architectures provide a biomimetic ACL tissue engineering scaffold

Tendon injury and repair – A perspective on the basic mechanisms of tendon disease and future clinical therapy

“…Silks fibers also are amenable to manufacture in various structures that can capture a range of tissue level mechanical properties. Using various wiring methods, mechanical properties in the range of the native ACL could be attained [268]. Silk grafts have also been successfully combined with osteoconductive biomaterials in large animal models to achieve native-like histological integration in a bone tunnel [269,270] with adequate mechanical stability up to 6 months after reconstruction [269].…”

Production of Highly Aligned Collagen Scaffolds by Freeze-drying of Self-assembled, Fibrillar Collagen Gels

“…Structural anisotropy is a factor in the native function of a variety of biological tissues. Structural alignment imparts necessary mechanical strength to load bearing tissues such as skeletal muscle, cardiac muscle, the smooth muscle lining of blood vessels and intestines, ligaments, and tendons. − Cell and matrix alignment also provide a guidance field for migrating cells or cell processes, which plays an important role in tissue morphogenesis, wound healing, and tissue regeneration. , Matrix alignment can also guide tissue regeneration in neural tissues such as the spinal cord and peripheral nerves. , Tissue engineering strategies that incorporate structural anisotropy are crucial in the development of next generation scaffolds fabricated from synthetic materials or natural polymers, such as collagen. − …”

Tissue Regeneration

“…Physical properties can be tuned by giving the silk fibroin different architectures. Li and Snedeker showed that wired, braided, and straight silk fibroin fibers behaved differently in biomechanical fatigue tests [55]. They found that a wired structure best fitted their final target which was an anterior cruciate ligament.…”