Microarchitectural Silk Fibroin/Hyaluronic Acid Scaffold via Slight Biodegradation

Silk-based scaffolds with hierarchical structure possess the capacities of promoting cells adhesion, proliferation and neotissue formation, which have been one of the candidates in tissue engineering. However, the ways to construct hierarchical structures in scaffolds are very limited, rather than introducing other nanoscale components. In this study, a hierarchical porous structure was directly established in silk fibroin/hyaluronic acid (SF/HA) scaffold through slight degradation technique. The resulting SF/HA scaffold presented desirable microarchitecture and appropriate porosity attribute to partial hydrolysis of SF molecules. The compression test showed that the SF/HA scaffolds was better than SF scaffolds in terms of compression stress and Young’s modulus. More importantly, the SF/HA scaffolds displayed good cytocompatibility as to supporting cells adhesion and proliferation. This paper provides a new strategy for preparing SF-based scaffolds with hierarchical porous structure in tissue engineering.