Supracolloidal Assemblies as Sacrificial Templates for Porous Silk-Based Biomaterials

Tissues in the body are hierarchically structured composite materials with tissue-specific properties. Urea self-assembles via hydrogen bonding interactions into crystalline supracolloidal assemblies that can be used to impart macroscopic pores to polymer-based tissue scaffolds. In this communicatio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of molecular sciences 2015-08, Vol.16 (9), p.20511-20522
Main Authors: Hardy, John G, Ghezzi, Chiara E, Saballos, Richard J, Kaplan, David L, Schmidt, Christine E
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biochemistry
Biocompatible Materials - chemistry
biomaterials
Biomedical materials
Bombyx mori
Colloids
Communication
Fibroblasts - cytology
Fibroblasts - metabolism
Humans
Molecular biology
Polymers
Porosity
Silk
Silk - chemistry
Solubility
Solvents - chemistry
supracolloidal chemistry
supramolecular chemistry
supramolecular materials
supramolecular polymers
tissue engineering
Tissue Scaffolds - chemistry
Tissues
Urea - chemistry
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Summary:Tissues in the body are hierarchically structured composite materials with tissue-specific properties. Urea self-assembles via hydrogen bonding interactions into crystalline supracolloidal assemblies that can be used to impart macroscopic pores to polymer-based tissue scaffolds. In this communication, we explain the solvent interactions governing the solubility of urea and thereby the scope of compatible polymers. We also highlight the role of solvent interactions on the morphology of the resulting supracolloidal crystals. We elucidate the role of polymer-urea interactions on the morphology of the pores in the resulting biomaterials. Finally, we demonstrate that it is possible to use our urea templating methodology to prepare Bombyx mori silk protein-based biomaterials with pores that human dermal fibroblasts respond to by aligning with the long axis of the pores. This methodology has potential for application in a variety of different tissue engineering niches in which cell alignment is observed, including skin, bone, muscle and nerve.
ISSN:1422-0067
1661-6596
1422-0067
DOI:10.3390/ijms160920511