Regenerated Silk Fibroin Nanofibrous Matrices Treated with 75% Ethanol Vapor for Tissue-Engineering Applications

As an excellent biocompatible and biodegradable protein polymer, silk fibroin (SF) has found wide applications, particularly serving as therapeutic agent for tissue-engineering applications, on which both post-spin treatment and sterilization processing are crucial to drug-loaded matrices. To find a safe, effective and appropriate post-spin treatment and sterilization approach for drug-loaded biomaterial matrices is one of the major problems in the field of tissue engineering at present. In this work, a simple, safe and effective approach skillfully integrating post-spin treatment with sterilization processing was developed to drug-loaded SF nanofibrous matrices. Electrospun SF nanofibrous matrices from its aqueous solution were post-treated with 75% ethanol vapor. 13C-NMR and WAXD analysis demonstrated that such post-spin treatment rendered the structure of SF nanofibrous matrices transform from the silk I form to the silk II form. Furthermore, biological assays suggested that as-treated SF nanofibrous m...