abstract
Silk sericin (SS) has been widely discarded as a waste by the silk textile industry during the degumming process to obtain fibroin. However, in the past decade, an in-depth understanding of its properties and functions turned it into a high added-value biomaterial for biomedical applications. Herein, we report the molecular design and development of sustainable supramolecular multilayered nanobiomaterials encompassing SS and oppositely charged chitosan (CHT) through a combination of self-assembly and electrostatically driven layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly technology. The successful buildup of SS/CHT multilayered nanobiomaterials was demonstrated by the quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring and attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and the nanofilms' wettable properties and nanofibrillar-like topography were shown by water contact angle, atomic force microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. In vitro assays demonstrated the cytocompatibility of the LbL nanofilms toward human primary dermal fibroblasts, holding great promise as biofunctional nanocoatings for drug/therapeutics/cell delivery, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine.
keywords
EXTRACELLULAR-MATRIX; SECONDARY STRUCTURE; POLYMER-FILMS; SERICIN FILM; NON-MULBERRY; CHITOSAN; FIBROIN; PROTEIN; ORIENTATION; HYDROGELS
subject category
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology; Chemistry; Polymer Science
authors
Rosas, M; Sousa, CFV; Pereira, A; Amaral, AR; Pesqueira, T; Patrício, SG; Fateixa, S; Nogueira, HIS; Mano, JF; Oliveira, AL; Borges, J
our authors
Helena Isabel Seguro Nogueira
Assistant Professor with Aggregation
João Borges
Assistant Researcher
João Mano
Full professor
Sara Fateixa
Post-Doc Fellowship
Sónia Gonçalves Patrício
Assistant Professor
Tamagno Pesqueira
Research FellowshipProjects
Collaboratory for Emerging Technologies, CoLab (EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES)
CICECO - Aveiro Institute of Materials (UIDB/50011/2020)
CICECO - Aveiro Institute of Materials (UIDP/50011/2020)
Associated Laboratory CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials (LA/P/0006/2020)
acknowledgements
This work was funded by the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under the Grant Agreement No. 101079482 ("SUPRALIFE"). This work was also funded by the Programa Operacional Regional do Centro - Centro 2020, in the component FEDER, and by national funds (OE) through Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia/Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior (FCT/MCTES), in the scope of the project "SUPRASORT" (PTDC/QUI-OUT/30658/2017, CENTRO-01-0145-FEDER-030658), as well as by the project UIDB/50016/2020 of the Centre for Biotechnology and Fine Chemistry - CBQF and "Interreg VI A Espana - Portugal (POCTEP) 2021-2027 '', IBEROS+ (0072_IBEROS_MAIS_1_E) - Instituto de Biofabricacion en Red para El Envejecimiento Saludable. C.F.V.S., S.G.P., and J.B. gratefully acknowledge FCT for the individual PhD grant (2020.04408.BD, DOI 1054499/2020.04408.BD - C.F.V.S.) and individual Assistant Researcher contracts (2020.00366.CEECIND/CP1589/CT0006, DOI 10.54499/2020.00366.CEECIND/CP1589/CT0006 - S.G.P.; 2020.00758.CEECIND/CP1589/CT0007, DOI 10.54499/2020.00758.CEECIND/CP1589/CT0007 - J.B.) under the Scientific Employment Stimulus - Individual Call, respectively. S.F. thanks FCT for her research contract (REF-069-88-ARH-2018), which is funded by national funds (OE) through FCT, I. P., in the scope of the framework contract foreseen in numbers 4, 5, and 6 of article 23 of the Decree-Law 57/2016, of August 29, changed by Law 57/2017, of July 19. This work was developed within the scope of the project CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials, UIDB/50011/2020 (DOI 10.54499/UIDB/50011/2020), UIDP/50011/2020 (DOI 10.54499/UIDP/50011/2020), and LA/P/0006/2020 (DOI 10.54499/LA/P/0006/2020), financed by national funds through the FCT/MEC (PIDDAC). The authors gratefully acknowledge Dr. Helene L. Lauzon from Primex EHF (Siglufjordur, Iceland) for kindly providing the chitosan batch used in this work.