Accelerated Healing of Full-Thickness Wounds by Genipin-Crosslinked Silk Sericin/PVA Scaffolds

Abstract

Silk sericin has recently been studied for its advantageous biological properties, including its ability to promote wound healing. This study developed a delivery system to accelerate the healing of full-thickness wounds. Three-dimensional scaffolds were fabricated from poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), glycerin (as a plasticizer) and genipin (as a crosslinking agent), with or without sericin. The physical and biological properties of the genipin-crosslinked sericin/PVA scaffolds were investigated and compared with those of scaffolds without sericin. The genipin-crosslinked sericin/PVA scaffolds exhibited a higher compressive modulus and greater swelling in water than the scaffolds without sericin. Sericin also exhibited controlled release from the scaffolds. The genipin-crosslinked sericin/PVA scaffolds promoted the attachment and proliferation of L929 mouse fibroblasts. After application to full-thickness rat wounds, the wounds treated with genipin-crosslinked sericin/PVA scaffolds showed a significantly greater reduction in wound size, collagen formation and epithelialization compared with the control scaffolds without sericin but lower numbers of macrophages and multinucleated giant cells. These results indicate that the delivery of sericin from the novel genipin-crosslinked scaffolds efficiently healed the wound. Therefore, these genipin-crosslinked sericin/PVA scaffolds represent a promising candidate for the accelerated healing of full-thickness wounds.

Silk Protein Sericin: Promising Biopolymer for Biological and Biomedical Applications

“…It shows that the addition of sericin in the composition of a classical collagen sponge enhanced the adhesion and also the proliferation rate of the seeded cells, with overexpression of PPARγ2, triggering a subsequent upregulated expression of FAS, aP2 and perilipin adipogenic markers. Three-dimensional scaffolds of sericin with PVA crosslinked with genepin show accelerated healing of full-thickness wounds [56,57]. Sericin/polyvinyl alcohol scaffolds using ethyl alcohol (EtOH), and a blend of carboxymethyl cellulose with sericin appear to be effective for wound healing applications [58,59].…”

“…Membranes of sericin and sericin gelatin blend have shown good cytocompability for application in tissue engineering as a biomaterial [22,24,44,45]. Similarly the in vivo application of sericin-PVA scaffolds demonstrate better wound healing effects with less scar formation in full-thickness skin wounds, and a lower level of inflammatory reactions [56].…”

Flexible sericin/polyvinyl alcohol/clay blend films

“…In addition, because of strong hydrophilic characteristics, Sericin films readily swollen by aqueous solutions and can even be dissolved in aqueous solutions at elevated temperatures. Therefore, blended Sericin films have been produced along with whey protein [17], glucomannan [18] and PVA [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]. Chemical crosslinking has shown to be an effective approach to enhance the mechanical, thermal and chemical stabilities of films.…”

“…Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) is synthetic, hot water soluble, nontoxic, biodegradable polymer with good film forming property which can be easily blended with Sericin [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]. Sericin and PVA has very good miscibility in hot water solution.…”

Characteristics of carboxymethyl cellulose/sericin hydrogels and the influence of molecular weight of carboxymethyl cellulose

“…20 We have intensively worked with various kinds of sericin-containing scaffolds aimed to be used as wound dressing materials. [21][22][23][24][25] The accelerated healing of wounds as a result of sericin released from the scaffolds was reported. Surprisingly, we preliminary found that sericin blended with CMC, without the use of any crosslinking agent, could be fabricated into a stable hydrogel even they are both water soluble polymers.…”