How Ethanol Treatment Affects The Physico-chemical And Biological Characteristics Of Silk Fibroin Nanofibrous Scaffolds

¹Biotechnology Department, School of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran  

²Bioengineering Research Group, Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials Department, Materials and Energy Research Center (MERC), P.O. Box 14155-4777, Tehran, Iran

³Cellular and Molecular Biology Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Adv. Mater. Lett., 2015, 6 (5), pp 391-394

DOI: 10.5185/amlett.2015.5739

Publication Date (Web): May 05, 2015

Copyright © IAAM-VBRI Press

E-mail: mazaher.gholipour@gmail.com

Abstract

In this study, the effects of ethanol treatment on the mechanical and biological characteristics of the nanofibrous silk fibroin (NSF) scaffolds were evaluated. The results obtained from the mechanical tests confirmed that ethanol treatment significantly enhanced the physical properties of the scaffolds through the formation of a ß-sheet structure. It was shown that the ethanol treatment increased the mechanical property and cell viability, while decreased the porosity of the randomly arranged uniform nanofibers. The ultimate tensile strength for the NSF and ethanol-treated NSF (ET-NSF) scaffolds were 0.76 and 1.33 MPa, respectively. In addition, the ethanol treatment positively affected the proliferation rate of rat bone-marrow stromal cells (rBMSCs) without any detectable cytotoxicity. All the results obtained from this study strongly indicated the efficacy of ethanol treatment in enhancement of mechanical and biological characteristics of silk fibroin nanofibrous scaffolds.

Keywords

Silk fibroin, tissue engineering, electrospinning, mechanical properties, ethanol treatment.