Degradation Mechanism and Control of Silk Fibroin

Controlling the degradation process of silk is an important and interesting subject in the field of biomaterials. In the present study, silk fibroin films with different secondary conformations and nanostructures were used to study degradation behavior in buffered protease XIV solution. Different fr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inBiomacromolecules Vol. 12; no. 4; pp. 1080 - 1086
Main Authors Lu, Qiang, Zhang, Bing, Li, Mingzhong, Zuo, Baoqi, Kaplan, David L, Huang, Yongli, Zhu, Hesun
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Washington, DC American Chemical Society 11.04.2011
Subjects
Applied sciences
Calorimetry, Differential Scanning
Exact sciences and technology
Fibroins - chemistry
Hydrolysis
Microscopy, Atomic Force
Natural polymers
Physicochemistry of polymers
Proteins
Silk - chemistry
Solutions
Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared
Structure effect
Enzyme
Film
Experimental study
Protein
Solid state
Peptidases
Silk
Enzymatic digestion
Reaction mechanism
Hydrolases
Fibroin
Liquid solid reaction
Kinetics
Conformation
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Summary:Controlling the degradation process of silk is an important and interesting subject in the field of biomaterials. In the present study, silk fibroin films with different secondary conformations and nanostructures were used to study degradation behavior in buffered protease XIV solution. Different from previous studies, silk fibroin films with highest β-sheet content achieved the highest degradation rate in our research. A new degradation mechanism revealed that degradation behavior of silk fibroin was related to not only crystal content but also hydrophilic interaction and then crystal−noncrystal alternate nanostructures. First, hydrophilic blocks of silk fibroin were degraded. Then, hydrophobic crystal blocks that were formerly surrounded and immobilized by hydrophilic blocks became free particles and moved into solution. Therefore, on the basis of the mechanism, which enables the process to be more controllable and flexible, controlling the degradation behavior of silk fibroin without affecting other performances such as its mechanical or hydrophilic properties becomes feasible, and this would greatly expand the applications of silk as a biomedical material.
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ISSN:1525-7797
1526-4602
1526-4602
DOI:10.1021/bm101422j