Membrane-reinforced three-dimensional electrospun silk fibroin scaffolds for bone tissue engineering

TL;DRAbstract

Electrospun silk fibroin (SF) scaffolds have drawn much attention because of their resemblance to natural tissue architecture such as extracellular matrix, and the biocompatibility of SF as a candidate material to replace collagen. However, electrospun scaffolds lack the physical integrity of bone tissue scaffolds, which require resistance to mechanical loadings. In this work, we propose membrane-reinforced electrospun SF scaffolds by a serial process of electrospinning and freeze-drying of SF solutions in two different solvents: formic acid and water, respectively. After wet electrospinning followed by replacement of methanol with water, SF nanofibers dispersed in water were mixed with aqueous SF solution. Freeze-drying of the mixed solution resulted in 3D membrane-connected SF nanofibrous scaffolds (SF scaffolds) with a thickness of a few centimeters. We demonstrated that the SF concentration of aqueous SF solution controlled the degree of membrane reinforcement between nanofibers. I

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