Non-bioengineered silk gland fibroin micromolded matrices to study cell-surface interactions

Abstract

Micropatterning/micromolding of protein molecules has played a significant role in developing biosensors, micro arrays, and tissue engineering devices for cellular investigations. Relevantly, there have been ample scopes for silk to be used as natural biomaterial in tissue engineering applications due to its attractive properties such as slow-controllable degradation, mechanical robustness, and inherent biocompatibility. In this paper, we report the fabrication of micromolded silk fibroin matrices, which have essentially been utilized to study cell-surface interactions. Fibroin protein has been isolated from the silk glands of nonmulberry Indian tropical tasar silkworms, Antheraea mylitta. The surface uniformity has been investigated using atomic force microscopy following the fabrication of silk micromolds. Subsequently, cellular interactions in terms of cell attachment, spreading, mitochondrial activity and proliferation have been studied in vitro using feline fibroblasts. Results have indicated a long term stability of patterns in micromolded silk matrices and negligible swelling. The versatility of described silk dissolution method coupled with ability to process large amount of silk protein into micromolded matrices and controllable surface topology may augment the desirability of silk fibroin as a natural biomaterial for bioengineering and biotechnological applications.