Silk fibroin is a natural protein extracted from Bombyx mori cocoons with remarkable biocompatibility and mechanical robustness, making it an ideal material for an assortment of biomedical applications.  Regenerated silk fibroin can be processed into a diversity of materials such as films, sponges, nets (micro and nano) and hydrogels, thus providing itself a number of practical applications. A method to obtain gels is to decrease the pH of fibroin/water solution below the isoelectric point. The mechanism of silk fibroin gelation occurs primarily through the encouragement of macromolecular interactions from the hydrophobic side chains, initiating hydrogen bonding and resulting in physical cross-linking of the silk proteins. Gelation can also be obtained by other methods, such as ultrasonication, treatment with organic solvents, dialysis against  acids or other substances. Gels of fibroin have been suggested for applications in tissue engineering for bone repair.  For instance,  the healing of confined critical-sized cancellous bone defects in rabbits was treated using injectable fibroin hydrogels.Gelatins are aqueous gels made by denatured collagen. Some gelatins display gel-sol transition at temperature near by the body temperature, e.g., behaving as solids at 32 �C and becoming liquid when heated at 36 �C. In our study, this phenomenon has been exploited to promote detachment of cells from wells coated with gelatin, or also to encapsulate cells entrapped in the solid gel only to be released when the gel temperature reaches the body T

Natural polymer gels for biomedical uses

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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