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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Supracolloidal assemblies as sacrificial templates for porous silk-based biomaterials
AU - Hardy, John
AU - Ghezzi, Chiara
AU - Saballos, Richard
AU - Kaplan, David L.
AU - Schmidt, Prof. Christine E.
N1 - This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
PY - 2015/8/28
Y1 - 2015/8/28
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - silk
KW - urea
KW - supramolecular
KW - biomaterial
KW - topographic influences
U2 - 10.3390/ijms160920511
DO - 10.3390/ijms160920511
M3 - Journal article
VL - 16
SP - 20511
EP - 20522
JO - International Journal of Molecular Sciences
JF - International Journal of Molecular Sciences
SN - 1661-6596
IS - 9
ER -