Injectable Sealants Based on Silk Fibroin for Fast Hemostasis and Wound Repairing

Abstract

Uncontrollable blood loss poses fatality risks and most recently developed sealants still share common limitations on controversial components, degradability, mechanical strength or gelation time. Herein, series of injectable sealants based on silk fibroin (SF) is developed. Random coil/β‐sheet conformation transition in SF is achieved by forming dendritic intermediates under induction of the structurally compatible and chemically complementary assembly peptide (Ac‐KAEA‐KAEA‐KAEA‐KAEA‐NH2, KA16). A ratio of 1:5 (KA‐SF‐15) shown an accelerating gelation process (≈12 s) and enhanced mechanical strength at physiological conditions. The interweaved nanofibers effectively impeded the bleeding within 30 s and no obvious adverse effects are observed. The supramolecular interactions and in vivo degradation benefit the inflammatory host cells infiltration and cytokines diffusion. Without any exogenous factors, the increased expression of VEGF and PDGF led to a positive feedback regulation on fibroblasts and vascular endothelial cell growth/proliferation and promoted the wound healing. These findings indicated the few assembly‐peptide can accelerate fibroin gelation transition at a limited physiological condition, and the injectable amino acid‐based sealants show obvious advantages on biocompatibility, degradability, rapid gelation and matched strength, with strong potential to act as next generation of biomedical materials.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Silk fibroin and hydroxypropyl cellulose composite injectable hydrogel-containing extracellular vesicles for myocardial infarction repair

“…Silk fibroin (SF) has good biocompatibility and biodegradability. It is widely used in various biomedical engineering for tissue repair [17][18][19]. Hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC), a natural heat-sensitive polymer, has been widely used in smart materials, drug delivery and other fields because of its excellent biocompatibility [20,21].…”

Facile preparation of injectable, thermosensitive, and physically cross-linked hemostatic hydrogel with rapid gelation and a robust network

“…In recent years, hydrogels have been used as hemostats and tissue sealants instead of traditional sutures and staples, due to their excellent performance in sealing wounds and halting bleeding. 3 Various materials have been developed to fabricate hemostatic hydrogels, such as cellulose, 4,5 other plant polysaccharides, 6–8 gelatin (G)/collagen, 9–11 chitosan, 12,13 fibrinogen, 14 hyaluronic acid (HA), 15 and so on. In particular, gelatin/hyaluronic acid (G/HA) based biomimetic hemostatic hydrogels have emerged as promising hemostats to stop bleeding and promote wound healing due to their perfect structural and mechanical similarity to the extracellular matrix (ECM) of biological tissues.…”

Preparation and Properties of Antibacterial Silk Fibroin Scaffolds

“…The total content of polar amino acids in SF is only approximately 4.75%, among which the negatively charged Asp and Glu account for approximately 1.78% and 1.93%, respectively, and the positively charged Lys, Arg, and His account for 0.34%, 0.46%, and 0.25%, respectively, so SF is negatively charged in a neutral environment. SF has excellent biocompatibility, desirable mechanical properties, and adjustable biodegradability [6,7]. Following a skin injury, wound dressings fabricated using SF are able to regulate the expression levels of proinflammatory cytokines (IL-α, IL-6) and anti-inflammatory cytokines (IL-10) and control the expression of waveform proteins, fibronectin, cell cycle protein D1, and vascular endothelial growth factor by stimulating the NF-κB signaling pathway, thus promoting wound healing [8][9][10].…”