Materials fabrication from Bombyx mori silk fibroin - Olin.pdfVIP

protocol Materials fabrication from Bombyx mori silk fibroin Danielle N Rockwood, Rucsanda C Preda, Tuna Yücel, Xiaoqin Wang, Michael L Lovett David L Kaplan Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, USA. Correspondence should be addressed to D.L.K. (david.kaplan@). Published online 22 September 2011; doi:10.1038/nprot.2011.379 silk fibroin, derived from Bombyx mori cocoons, is a widely used and studied protein polymer for biomaterial applications. silk fibroin has remarkable mechanical properties when formed into different materials, demonstrates biocompatibility, has controllable degradation rates from hours to years and can be chemically modified to alter surface properties or to immobilize growth factors. a variety of aqueous or organic solvent-processing methods can be used to generate silk biomaterials for a range of applications. In this protocol, we include methods to extract silk from B. mori cocoons to fabricate hydrogels, tubes, sponges, composites, fibers, microspheres and thin films. these materials can be used directly as biomaterials for implants, as scaffolding in tissue engineering and in vitro disease models, as well as for drug delivery. IntroDuctIon . Bombyx mori (silkworm) silk is a unique material, which has his- blocks linked by small hydrophilic linker segments or spacers. d e v torically been highly regarded for its strength and luster. Physicians The crystalline regions are primarily composed of glycine-X r e have used silk as a suture material for centuries, and it has recently repeats, where X is alanine, serine, threonine or valine. Within s e r gained attention as a biomaterial because of several desirable prop- these domains lie subdomains that are rich i