Nucleation and Assembly of Silica into Protein-Based Nanocomposites as Effective Anticancer Drug Carriers Using Self-Assembled Silk Protein Nanostructures as Biotemplates.

ABSTRACT: Bombyx mori (B. mori) silk fibroin and sericin can act as a great candidate in delivering drugs or other bioactive substances. Silica also has a great application in the field of drug delivery. To the best of our knowledge, there has been no report on the design of a nanocomposite made of silk protein and silica for drug delivery. Here, for the first time, we used B. mori silk fibroin (SF) and sericin (SS), self-assembled into nanospheres and nanofibers in situ in the aqueous solution, respectively, as a biotemplate to regulate the nucleation and self-assembly of silica for designing anticancer drug delivery. SF and SS mediated the nucleation and assembly of silica into monodispersed nanospheres (termed Si/SF) and nanofibers (termed Si/SS), respectively. The size and topography of the sili

SUBMITTER: Wang J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5759309 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature