Morphological Characterization and Chemical Bond Identification of Collagen-coated Native Silk Fibroin Fibers Using Chemical Method

Abstract

Native silk fibroin (SF) fiber has been widely researched as the materials for tissue engineering scaffolds for its robust mechanical properties. Collagen is the main component of extra cellular matrix (ECM) and has remarkable biocompatibility, so it is often utilized to coat native SF scaffolds for improving the cell adhesion. However, there is lack of feasible methodology for coating collagen on the native SF fibers. In this paper we coated collagen on the native SF fibers by creating amide bonds between the carboxyls from native SF and the amino groups from collagen. Morphological characterization (including 3D surface roughness Sq, Spq and Svq,) and chemical bond identification (including amide bond and carboxyl) of the native SF and collagen-coated SF fibers were performed. The results indicated the chemical method could integrally coat collagen on native SF fibers. The chemical modification on the surface and collagen concentration had no significant influence on the 3D roughness. The coated and uncoated groups had high similarity in position of characteristic peaks of chemical bonds.