Preparation and Characterization of Natural Silk Fibroin Hydrogel for Protein Drug Delivery

Molecules

Rong Shao¹  Junwei Liu¹  Haowen Sun²  Wei Xu²  Yuwei Peng²  Ligen Chen² 

[1] School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Yancheng Institute of Technology, Yancheng 224051, China;School of Marine and Bioengineering, Yancheng Institute of Technology, Yancheng 224051, China;

关键词: silk fibroin;    hydrogel;    recycled material;    drug delivery;   

DOI  :  10.3390/molecules27113418

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

In recent years, hydrogels have been widely used as drug carriers, especially in the area of protein delivery. The natural silk fibroin produced from cocoons of the Bombyx mori silkworm possesses excellent biocompatibility, significant bioactivity, and biodegradability. Therefore, silk fibroin-based hydrogels are arousing widespread interest in biomedical research. In this study, a process for extracting natural silk fibroin from raw silk textile yarns was established, and three aqueous solutions of silk fibroin with different molecular weight distributions were successfully prepared by controlling the degumming time. Silk fibroin was dispersed in the aqueous solution as “spherical” aggregate particles, and the smaller particles continuously accumulated into large particles. Finally, a silk fibroin hydrogel network was formed. A rheological analysis showed that as the concentration of the silk fibroin hydrogel increased its storage modulus increased significantly. The degradation behavior of silk fibroin hydrogel in different media verified its excellent stability, and the prepared silk fibroin hydrogel had good biocompatibility and an excellent drug-loading capacity. After the protein model drug BSA was loaded, the cumulative drug release within 12 h reached 80%. We hope that these investigations will promote the potential utilities of silk fibroin hydrogels in clinical medicine.

【 授权许可】

Unknown