Novel silk fibroin/elastin wound dressings

Abstract

Silk fibroin (SF) and elastin (EL) scaffolds were successfully produced for the first time for the treatment of burn wounds. The self-assembly properties of SF, together with the excellent chemical and mechanical stability and biocompatibility, were combined with elastin protein to produce scaffolds with the ability to mimic the extracellular matrix (ECM). Porous scaffolds were obtained by lyophilization and were further crosslinked with genipin (GE). Genipin crosslinking induces the conformational transition from random coil to β-sheet of SF chains, yielding scaffolds with smaller pore size and reduced swelling ratios, degradation and release rates. All results indicated that the composition of the scaffolds had a significant effect on their physical properties, and that can easily be tuned to obtain scaffolds suitable for biological applications. Wound healing was assessed through the use of human full-thickness skin equivalents (EpidermFT). Standardized burn wounds were induced by a cautery and the best re-epithelialization and the fastest wound closure was obtained in wounds treated with 50SF scaffolds; these contain the highest amount of elastin after 6 days of healing in comparison with other dressings and controls. The cytocompatibility demonstrated with human skin fibroblasts together with the healing improvement make these SF/EL scaffolds suitable for wound dressing applications.

Recent advances on the development of wound dressings for diabetic foot ulcer treatment—A review

“…Elastin is highly insoluble and difficult to process into new biomaterials. Nevertheless, its soluble forms, including tropoelastin (a soluble precursor form of elastin), a-elastin (an oxalic acid derivative of elastin) and elastin-like polypeptides have much broader applications as elastinbased biomaterials [200,201]. Elastin can also be cross-linked by chemical (e.g.…”

“…Elastin. Elastin is an insoluble ECM protein and a major constituent of skin elastic fibers [199,200]. Elastin is highly insoluble and difficult to process into new biomaterials.…”

Fabrication of alginate–gelatin crosslinked hydrogel microcapsules and evaluation of the microstructure and physico-chemical properties

“…34,35 ADA-GEL hydrogels (1 AE 0.1 g) were heated with 2% (w/v) ninhydrin solution at 100 C for 20 min. The optical absorbance of the resulting solution was recorded at 570 nm using a UV-Vis spectrophotometer (Specord 40, Analytik Jena, Germany).…”

Preparation and properties of silk sericin/cellulose cross-linking films

“…3 shows the DSC thermograms of heating scan for pure silk sericin, pure cellouse and cross-linked film with 2% glutaraldehyde from room temperature to 400 o C. Both silk sericin and cross-linked film display a peak nearly 150 o C, which is caused by desorption of water and motivation of molecular chain in amorphous region [8,9]. Meanwhile, an weak endothermic peak at 300 o C have appeared for pure silk sericin , representing the thermal decomposition of silk sericin.…”

“…Meanwhile, to maintain water-insolubility chemical crosslinking reagents were added to blending film. Glutaraldehyde is an effective synthetic crosslinking agents that can react with amino acids or proteins [8]. It has been reported biopolymers using glutaradehyde as crosslinking agents show good mechnical properites.…”