title: Macrophage responses to silk.
abstract: Silk fibers have potential biomedical applications beyond their traditional use as sutures. The physical properties of silk fibers and films make it a promising candidate for tissue engineering scaffold applications, particularly where high mechanical loads or tensile forces are applied or in cases where low rates of degradation are desirable. A critical issue for biomaterial scaffolds is biocompatibility. The direct inflammatory potential of intact silk fibers as well as extracts was studied in an in vitro system. The results indicate that silk fibers are largely immunologically inert in short- and long-term culture with RAW 264.7 murine macrophage cells while insoluble fibroin particles induced significant TNF release. Soluble sericin proteins extracted from native silk fibers did not induce significant macrophage activation. While sericin did not activate macrophages by itself, it demonstrated a synergistic effect with bacterial lipopolysaccharide. The low level of inflammatory potential of silk fibers makes them promising candidates in future biomedical applications.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tufts University, Bioengineering Center, 4 Colby Street, Medford, Massachusetts, MA 02155, USA.
authors.forename: Bruce
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Panilaitis
authors.forename: Gregory H
authors.initials: GH
authors.lastname: Altman
authors.forename: Jingsong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Hyoung Joon
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.forename: Vassilis
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Karageorgiou
authors.forename: David L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Kaplan
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001672:Biocompatible Materials / Q000494:pharmacology; D012831:Bombyx / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D002460:Cell Line; D005349:Fibroins / Q000494:pharmacology*; D019476:Insect Proteins / Q000276:immunology / Q000494:pharmacology*; D008262:Macrophage Activation / Q000187:drug effects*; D008264:Macrophages / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000276:immunology; D051379:Mice; D010456:Peptides, Cyclic / Q000494:pharmacology*; D047030:Sericins; D047011:Silk; D013537:Sutures / Q000009:adverse effects; D013784:Textiles / Q000633:toxicity; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D001672:Biocompatible Materials; D019476:Insect Proteins; D010456:Peptides, Cyclic; D047030:Sericins; D047011:Silk; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha; D005349:Fibroins