Flexible silk fibroin films for wound dressing

Abstract

In the present study, an effort has been made to create dextrose incorporated (5-15 % w/w) flexible silk fibroin films for wound dressing applications. The flexibility of silk fibroin films increases with increase in dextrose content. The elongation at break properties of dextrose modified silk fibroin (DMSF) films increases from 3.2 % to 40 % with increase in dextrose content. The glass transition temperature (Tg) of the films decreases from 176 °C to 155 °C with increase in dextrose content. This shows that dextrose is acting as plasticizer for silk fibroin films. The structural and morphological properties of dextrose modified silk films (DMSF) are characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). FTIR and XRD studies show that the dextrose content does not affect the crystalline structure of silk fibroin films. The surface roughness of the films also increases with increases in dextrose content in DMSF films. The addition of dextrose enhances the swelling and hydrophilicity of silk fibroin films. The adherence, proliferation and viability of L929 fibroblast cells cultured on DMSF films indicate that it has ability to support cell growth and proliferation as compared to SF film. The 15 % DMSF film showed significantly higher mass loss than SF film after 50 days of incubation in Protease XIV. Further, the data presented here constitute strong evidence that dextrose modified film has the great potential to be utilized as dermal wound dressing material.