Coatings and Films Made of Silk Proteins

Abstract

Silks are a class of proteinaceous materials produced by arthropods for various purposes. Spider dragline silk is known for its outstanding mechanical properties, and it shows high biocompatibility, good biodegradability, and a lack of immunogenicity and allergenicity. The silk produced by the mulberry silkworm B. mori has been used as a textile fiber and in medical devices for a long time. Here, recent progress in the processing of different silk materials into highly tailored isotropic and anisotropic coatings for biomedical applications such as tissue engineering, cell adhesion, and implant coatings as well as for optics and biosensors is reviewed.

Luminescent golden silk and fabric through in situ chemically coating pristine-silk with gold nanoclusters

“…The reason for this phenomenon is that NaOH, which was used in the present work, is able to degrade (or decompose) a small part of the surface sericin on the fiber. This mechanism is similar to an incomplete degumming process of mulberry silk in alkaline liquid [21]. Because of the partial decomposition of sericin, the total weight of the silk also decreased slightly after it had been coated with AuNCs (SI, Figure S8).…”

PEGylated Silk Nanoparticles for Anticancer Drug Delivery

“…Some of these studies examined the ability of silk nanoparticles to entrap and release (model) drugs 26,29,32 . Nanoparticles prepared from spider silks 36,37 and chimeric silks (e.g. silk-elastinlike protein polymers) 38 are typically formed using a selfassembly process; these engineered silk nanoparticles have been used for a range of drug delivery applications including small molecular weight (model) drugs 39 and biologics (e.g.…”

Applicability of biotechnologically produced insect silks

“…Silk films or coatings can be produced using a variety of different processing techniques [83] (Figure 6). Films can be produced starting from different (fast-evaporating) organic solvents, acids, or aqueous solutions, e.g.…”

“…Film thickness is mainly determined by the amount of protein. The secondary structure of the silk proteins within the film is highly dependent on the solvent and can therefore be adapted according to the specific needs [83]. Fluorinated solvents such HFIP induce α-helical structure of the silk proteins in the film, whilst films cast from formic acid or from aqueous solutions show high β-sheet content [71,85,86].…”