title: Fabrication and biocompatibility of electrospun silk biocomposites.
abstract: Silk fibroin has attracted great interest in tissue engineering because of its outstanding biocompatibility, biodegradability and minimal inflammatory reaction. In this study, two kinds of biocomposites based on regenerated silk fibroin are fabricated by electrospinning and post-treatment processes, respectively. Firstly, regenerated silk fibroin/tetramethoxysilane (TMOS) hybrid nanofibers with high hydrophilicity are prepared, which is superior for fibroblast attachment. The electrospinning process causes adjacent fibers to 'weld' at contact points, which can be proved by scanning electron microscope (SEM). The water contact angle of silk/tetramethoxysilane (TMOS) composites shows a sharper decrease than pure regenerated silk fibroin nanofiber, which has a great effect on the early stage of cell attachment behavior. Secondly, a novel tissue engineering scaffold material based on electrospun silk fibroin/nano-hydroxyapatite (nHA) biocomposites is prepared by means of an effective calcium and phosphate (Ca-P) alternate soaking method. nHA is successfully produced on regenerated silk fibroin nanofiber within several min without any pre-treatments. The osteoblastic activities of this novel nanofibrous biocomposites are also investigated by employing osteoblastic-like MC3T3-E1 cell line. The cell functionality such as alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity is ameliorated on mineralized silk nanofibers. All these results indicate that this silk/nHA biocomposite scaffold material may be a promising biomaterial for bone tissue engineering.
authors: Nano Fusion Technology Research Group, Faculty of Textile Science & Technology, Shinshu University, Ueda, Nagano 386-8567, Japan. sudaweikai@hotmail.com.
authors: Kai
authors: K
authors: Wei
authors: Nano Fusion Technology Research Group, Faculty of Textile Science & Technology, Shinshu University, Ueda, Nagano 386-8567, Japan. kbsuhk@yahoo.com.
authors: Byoung-Suhk
authors: BS
authors: Kim
authors: Nano Fusion Technology Research Group, Faculty of Textile Science & Technology, Shinshu University, Ueda, Nagano 386-8567, Japan. kim@shinshu-u.ac.jp.
authors: Ick-Soo
authors: IS
authors: Kim