Preparation of silk fibroin-poly(ethylene glycol) conjugate films through click chemistry

Design of New Bis(1,2,3-triazol-1-yl)methane-Based Nitrogen Ligands: Synthesis and Coordination Chemistry

The reaction between bis(1,2,3-triazol-1-yl)methane derivatives and nBuLi and various aldehydes, yielded novel neutral ligand precursors incorporating alcohol functional groups. The resulting compounds exhibited distinct characteristics depending on the steric hindrance of the aldehyde employed. In instances where aromatic aldehydes were utilized, functionalization occurred at the methine group bridging both triazole rings. Conversely, the use of pivalic aldehyde prompted functionalization at the C5 position of the triazole ring. These compounds were subsequently employed as ligand precursors in the synthesis of organometallic aluminum and zinc complexes, yielding dinuclear complexes with high efficiency. The structural elucidation of all compounds was accomplished through spectroscopic methods and validated by X-ray crystallography. Preliminary catalytic investigations into the coupling reaction of cyclohexene oxide and CO2 revealed that aluminum and zinc complexes catalyzed the selective formation of polyether and polycarbonate materials, respectively.

Silk Bioconjugates: From Chemistry and Concept to Application

Medical silks have captured global interest. While silk sutures have a long track record in humans, silk bioconjugates are still in preclinical development. This perspective examines key advances in silk bioconjugation, including the fabrication of silk-protein conjugates, bioconjugated silk particles, and bioconjugated substrates to enhance cell-material interactions in two and three dimensions. Many of these systems rely on chemical modification of the silk biopolymer, often using carbodiimide and reactive ester chemistries. However, recent progress in enzyme-mediated and click chemistries has expanded the molecular toolbox to enable biorthogonal, site-specific conjugation in a single step when combined with recombinant silk fibroin tagged with noncanonical amino acids. This perspective outlines key strategies available for chemical modification, compares the resulting silk conjugates to clinical benchmarks, and outlines open questions and areas that require more work. Overall, this assessment highlights a domain of new sunrise capabilities and development opportunities for silk bioconjugates that may ultimately offer new ways of delivering improved healthcare.

Silk chemistry and biomedical material designs

Silk fibroin has applications in different medical fields such as tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, drug delivery and medical devices. Advances in silk chemistry and biomaterial designs have yielded exciting tools for generating new silk-based materials and technologies. Selective chemistries can enhance or tune the features of silk, such as mechanics, biodegradability, processability and biological interactions, to address challenges in medically relevant materials (hydrogels, films, sponges and fibres). This Review details the design and utility of silk biomaterials for different applications, with particular focus on chemistry. This Review consists of three segments: silk protein fundamentals, silk chemistries and functionalization mechanisms. This is followed by a description of different crosslinking chemistries facilitating network formation, including the formation of composite biomaterials. Utility in the fields of tissue engineering, drug delivery, 3D printing, cell coatings, microfluidics and biosensors are highlighted. Looking to the future, we discuss silk biomaterial design strategies to continue to improve medical outcomes.

SuFEx modification of silk fibroin silicon aerogel and its adsorption behavior and antibacterial performance

A silk fibroin silicon-based composite aerogel (SSA) has been modified via a SuFEx reaction for application in the adsorption of anionic pollutants and antimicrobials in water. The tyrosine fragment in the silk fibroin was modified by a high yielding SuFEx click reaction. A quaternary ammonium salt functionality was introduced into the silk fibroin protein and the modified silk fibroin protein was crosslinked with tetraethyl orthosilicate. The aerogel was then prepared by freeze-drying. The aerogel obtained has biocompatibility and biodegradability properties. Four types of dyes (Methyl orange, Rhodamine B, Methylene blue and Acid red) were applied as targets and the saturated adsorption amounts were calculated. The adsorption behavior of the dyes towards SSA was studied by fitting Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption models. A pseudo-first order kinetic model and a pseudo-second order kinetic model were used to study the kinetics of the adsorption process. After 6 cycles, the removal rate of methyl orange by SSA remained at 81.25%. The adsorption capacity and anti-interference ability of SSA on some other polluting anions such as PO₄^3- and CrO₄^2- were also measured and the efficiency adsorption reached up to 70.94% and 77.91%, respectively. The antibacterial effect of SSA was evaluated with Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus as representative examples.

Controlled radical polymerization of hydrophilic and zwitterionic brush-like polymers from silk fibroin surfaces

Bombyx mori silk fibroin is a fibrous protein whose tunable properties and biocompatibility have resulted in its utility in a wide-variety of applications, including as drug delivery vehicles, wound dressings, and tissue engineering scaffolds. Control of protein and cell attachment is vital to the performance of biomaterials, but silk fibroin is mostly hydrophobic and interacts nonspecifically with cells and proteins. Silk functionalised with hydrophilic polymers reduces attachment, but the low number of reactive sites makes achieving a uniform conjugation a persistent challenge. This work presents a new approach to grow brush-like polymers from the surface of degradable silk films, where the films were enriched with hydroxyl groups, functionalised with an initiator, and finally reacted with acrylate monomers using atom transfer radical polymerisation. Two different routes to hydroxyl enrichment were investigated, one involving reaction with ethylene oxide (EO) and the other using a two-step photo-catalysed oxidation reaction. Both routes increased surface hydrophilicity, and hydrophilic monomers containing either uncharged (poly(ethylene glycol), PEG) pendant groups or zwitterionic pendant groups were polymerised from the surfaces. The initial processing of the films to induce beta sheet structures was found to impact the success of the polymerizations. Compared to the EO modified or unmodified silk surfaces, the oxidation reaction resulted in more polymer conjugation and the surfaces appear more uniform. Mesenchymal stem cell and protein attachment were the lowest on polymers grown from oxidised surfaces. PEG-containing brush-like polymers displayed lower protein attachment than surfaces conjugated with PEG using a previously reported "grafting to" method, but polymers containing zwitterionic side chains displayed both the lowest contact angles and the lowest cell and protein attachment. This finding may arise from the interactions of the zwitterionic pendant groups through their permanent dipoles and is an important finding because PEG is susceptible to oxidative damage that can reduce efficacy over time. These modified silk materials with lower cell and protein attachments are envisioned to find utility when enhanced diffusion around surfaces is required, such as in drug delivery implants.

Advanced polymeric nanotechnology to augment therapeutic delivery and disease diagnosis

Therapeutic and diagnostic payloads are usually associated with properties that compromise their efficacy, such as poor aqueous solubility, short half-life, low bioavailability, nonspecific accumulation and diverse side effects. Nanotechnological solutions have emerged to circumvent some of these drawbacks, augmenting therapeutic and/or diagnostic outcomes. Nanotechnology has benefited from the rise in polymer science research for the development of novel nanosystems for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes. Polymers are a widely used class of biomaterials, with a considerable number of regulatory approvals for application in clinics. In addition to their versatility in production and functionalization, several synthetic and natural polymers demonstrate biocompatible properties that dictate their successful biological performance. This article highlights the physicochemical characteristics of a variety of natural and synthetic biocompatible polymers, as well as their role in the manufacture of nanotechnology-based systems, state-of-art applications in disease treatment and diagnosis, and current challenges in finding a way to clinics.

Photolithographic Masking Method to Chemically Pattern Silk Film Surfaces

A method has been developed for selectively patterning silk surfaces using a photolithographic process to mask off sections of silk films, which allows selective and precise patterning of features down to 40 μm. This process is highly versatile, utilizes only low-cost equipment and can be used to rapidly prototype flat silk substrates with spatially controlled chemical patterns. Here we demonstrate the usefulness of this technique to deposit fluorescent dyes, labeled proteins and conducting polymers or to modify the surface charge of the silk protein in desired regions on a silk film surface.

Injectable silk-polyethylene glycol hydrogels

Silk hydrogels for tissue repair are usually pre-formed via chemical or physical treatments from silk solutions. For many medical applications, it is desirable to utilize injectable silk hydrogels at high concentrations (>8%) to avoid surgical implantation and to achieve slow in vivo degradation of the gel. In the present study, injectable silk solutions that formed hydrogels in situ were generated by mixing silk with low-molecular-weight polyethylene glycol (PEG), especially PEG300 and 400 (molecular weight 300 and 400g mol(-1)). Gelation time was dependent on the concentration and molecular weight of PEG. When the concentration of PEG in the gel reached 40-45%, gelation time was less than 30min, as revealed by measurements of optical density and rheological studies, with kinetics of PEG400 faster than PEG300. Gelation was accompanied by structural changes in silk, leading to the conversion from random coil in solution to crystalline β-sheets in the gels, based on circular dichroism, attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction. The modulus (127.5kPa) and yield strength (11.5kPa) determined were comparable to those of sonication-induced hydrogels at the same concentrations of silk. The time-dependent injectability of 15% PEG-silk hydrogel through 27G needles showed a gradual increase of compression forces from ∼10 to 50N within 60min. The growth of human mesenchymal stem cells on the PEG-silk hydrogels was hindered, likely due to the presence of PEG, which grew after a 5 day delay, presumably while the PEG solubilized away from the gel. When 5% PEG-silk hydrogel was subcutaneously injected in rats, significant degradation and tissue in-growth took place after 20 days, as revealed by ultrasound imaging and histological analysis. No significant inflammation around the gel was observed. The features of injectability, slow degradation and low initial cell attachment suggests that these PEG-silk hydrogels are of interest for many biomedical applications, such as anti-fouling and anti-adhesion.

Incorporation of Exogenous RGD Peptide and Inter-Species Blending as Strategies for Enhancing Human Corneal Limbal Epithelial Cell Growth on Bombyx mori Silk Fibroin Membranes

While fibroin isolated from the cocoons of domesticated silkworm Bombyx mori supports growth of human corneal limbal epithelial (HLE) cells, the mechanism of cell attachment remains unclear. In the present study we sought to enhance the attachment of HLE cells to membranes of Bombyx mori silk fibroin (BMSF) through surface functionalization with an arginine-glycine-aspartic acid (RGD)-containing peptide. Moreover, we have examined the response of HLE cells to BMSF when blended with the fibroin produced by a wild silkworm, Antheraea pernyi, which is known to contain RGD sequences within its primary structure. A procedure to isolate A. pernyi silk fibroin (APSF) from the cocoons was established, and blends of the two fibroins were prepared at five different BMSF/APSF ratios. In another experiment, BMSF surface was modified by binding chemically the GRGDSPC peptide using a water-soluble carbodiimide. Primary HLE were grown in the absence of serum on membranes made of BMSF, APSF, and their blends, as well as on RGD-modified BMSF. There was no statistically significant enhancing effect on the cell attachment due to the RGD presence. This suggests that the adhesion through RGD ligands may have a complex mechanism, and the investigated strategies are of limited value unless the factors contributing to this mechanism become better known.