Abstract
Sericin is a 10-to-400 kDa hydrophilic protein with high serine content and is a silk constituent together with fibroin. It is produced in the middle silk gland of the silkworm and encoded by four sericin genes. The molecular weight of sericin and its biological activity vary depending on the extraction method employed. Its chemical structure, in terms of random coil and β-sheet conformations, also differs with the extraction method, thereby extending its applications in various fields. Sericin, which was discarded in the textile industry in the past, is being applied and developed in the biomedical field, owing to its biological properties. In particular, many studies are underway in the field of tissue engineering, evaluating its applicability in burn dressing, drug delivery, bone regeneration, cartilage regeneration, and nerve regeneration.
Highlights
Raw silk produced by Bombyx mori is a natural protein fiber comprising hydrophobic fibroin and hydrophilic sericin [1,2,3]
Fibroin exhibits low inflammatory activity, excellent biocompatibility and mechanical properties, and controllable degradability; many studies have been conducted on its non-textile applications, especially medical applications [7,8,9,10], and it has been widely used in membranes for guided bone regeneration [6,11,12], scaffolds for tissue engineering [13,14,15,16,17], wound dressing [18,19,20], cornea tissue engineering [21], artificial eardrums [22], vascular grafts [23,24], nerve guidance conduits [25], and drug delivery carriers [26]
The purpose of this paper is to report the recently updated information on sericin genes and their influence on the molecular weight and biological activities of sericin depending on the degumming method, as well as to review the application of sericin in tissue engineering
Summary
Raw silk produced by Bombyx mori is a natural protein fiber comprising hydrophobic fibroin and hydrophilic sericin [1,2,3]. The most recently discovered gene, sericin, is approximately 40 kb in size and contains 34 exons It was to have six alternatively spliced transcripts [47]. 24 kblocations long and Silkworms produce two types silk:encoding cocoon silk and non-cocoon This genetheir can be alternatively spliced as fourand mRNAs 16.2 kb long and comprises exons [50,51] It in cocoon silk comprise of sericin 1 and 3, respectively, whereas the outer and inner sericin layers can in be alternatively spliced of as two mRNAs and 5.0–6.4[32,47,55]. Sci. 2020, 10, 8457 to anchor the larval body to the surrounding material, such as a tree branch, without the need to3form of 18 a rigid structure [47,53,55]
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