Silk protein Spidroin is a highly desirable biomaterial used in a myriad of applications both in frontier research and biomedical field due to its remarkable mechanical properties and biocompatibility. This extraordinary mechanical property results from its unique molecular composition and architecture, consisting of hydrophobic blocks rich in alanine and hydrophilic blocks rich in glycine, linked via hydrogen bond and crystalline β-sheet nanostructure. Chemically synthesized polymers structurally similar to Silk protein are in demand for studying their structure-property relationship. Thus, we present here a facile synthesis strategy of developing Silk-inspired ABA and (AB)<sub>n </sub>polymers via ring opening polymerization (ROP), microwave-induced Diels-Alder (DA) cycloaddition, and step-growth polymerization. A detail characterization of the synthesized polymer including mass spectrometry, nuclear magenitc resonance and gel permeation chromatography will be elaborated.

Chemical synthesis of silk inspired polymer

ACS Fall 2021

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