Vortex-induced injectable silk fibroin hydrogels.

ABSTRACT: A novel, to our knowledge, technique was developed to control the rate of beta-sheet formation and resulting hydrogelation kinetics of aqueous, native silk solutions. Circular dichroism spectroscopy indicated that vortexing aqueous solutions of silkworm silk lead to a transition from an overall protein structure that is initially rich in random coil to one that is rich in beta-sheet content. Dynamic oscillatory rheology experiments collected under the same assembly conditions as the circular dichroism experiments indicated that the increase in beta-sheet content due to intramolecular conformational changes and intermolecular self-assembly of the silk fibroin was directly correlated with the subsequent changes in viscoelastic properties due to hydrogelation. Vortexing low-viscosity silk sol

SUBMITTER: Yucel T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2756352 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature