Abstract
A cytocompatible porous scaffold mimicking the properties of extracellular matrices (ECMs) has great potential in promoting cellular attachment and proliferation for tissue regeneration. A biomimetic scaffold was prepared using silk fibroin (SF)/sodium alginate (SA) in which regular and uniform pore morphology can be formed through a facile freeze-dried method. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) studies showed the presence of interconnected pores, mostly spread over the entire scaffold with pore diameter around 54~532 μm and porosity 66~94%. With significantly better water stability and high swelling ratios, the blend scaffolds crosslinked by 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl) carbodiimide (EDC) provided sufficient time for the formation of neo-tissue and ECMs during tissue regeneration. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) results confirmed random coil structure and silk I conformation were maintained in the blend scaffolds. What’s more, FI-TR spectra demonstrated crosslinking reactions occurred actually among EDC, SF and SA macromolecules, which kept integrity of the scaffolds under physiological environment. The suitable pore structure and improved equilibrium swelling capacity of this scaffold could imitate biochemical cues of natural skin ECMs for guiding spatial organization and proliferation of cells in vitro, indicating its potential candidate material for soft tissue engineering.
Highlights
Tissue engineering, which aim to reconstruct living tissues for repairing or replacement of damaged or lost tissues/organs of living organisms, is an increasing concern in the life sciences[1]
In order to stabilize the scaffolds against water or solvent, ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl) carbodiimide (EDC) was used as a crosslink agent in this study
This activated carboxyl group will change into a carbocation, which followed by attack of various bases in the mixture system
Summary
Tissue engineering, which aim to reconstruct living tissues for repairing or replacement of damaged or lost tissues/organs of living organisms, is an increasing concern in the life sciences[1]. A report have suggested that certain alginate dressings can enhanced wound healing by stimulating monocytes to produce elevated levels of tumor necrosis factor-α(TNF-α)[19] This simulation is advantageous to repairing damaged soft tissue such as impaired skin. In order to improve performance of such natural polymers and expand the applied range, they has been blended with various of other polymers which include both natural macromolecules like collagen, gelatin, elastin, chitosan, hyaluronic and sodium carboxymethyl cellulose as well as synthetic molecules like polyacrylamide, polystyrene, polyurethane, poly (L-lactide), polyvinylalcohol, poly ethylene glycol[11,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31] Those blend scaffolds with more superior properties were employed for various tissue engineering applications. The SF/SA hydrogel scaffolds crosslinked by Ca2+ were used for recreating artificial stem cell niche[33], and another novel SF/SA hybrid scaffolds offered new and important options to the needs related to biomineralization in tissue engineering[34]
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