Silk Fibroin Nanofibers Development

Lifeasible, as a supplier of silk fibroin development, can provide you with high-quality product development services, including property modification of silk fibroin and structure design. We can provide you with product development solutions, nanofiber preparation services, and a series of analytical tests to ensure the complete development of your project.

Background

Silk is a protein complex composed of heavy-chain proteins, light-chain proteins, and glycoproteins in a certain ratio. The core region is a highly repetitive amino acid sequence consisting of alternating hydrophilic and hydrophobic fragments, terminated by an N-terminal and C-terminal consisting of a randomly coiled structure. Silk protein nanofibers are prepared in two main ways: "bottom-up" and "top-down." The so-called "bottom-up" approach is to dissolve the silk into silk protein molecules, which are then aggregated into bundles or assembled into nanofibers, with the Silk I structure as the main crystalline state; while the "top-down" approach is to strip the nanofibers directly from the silk, retaining the original crystalline structure of the silk. The "top-down" process is to peel the nanofibers directly from silk, which has the original crystalline structure of silk, instead of dissolving into silk protein molecules, and the crystalline state is mainly Silk Ⅱ structure.

Fig.1 The hierarchical structure of silk. (Wang et al., 2020)

Our Services

• Blended with Natural Polymers

Combining natural polymers (collagen, gelatin, chitosan) with silk proteins changes the conformation and structure of the blends and modulates the mechanical properties of the blends.

• Blends with Synthetic Polymers

The nanofiber materials were prepared by combining synthetic polymers' excellent mechanical properties with silk protein's bioactivity as raw materials.

• Chemical Modification of Silk Fibroin

The fibers are chemically modified in various ways. Among them, acyl modification of the amino group can enrich the carboxyl group of the side chain of silk protein, which can improve the dyeability of silk fiber, etc.; sulfation modification of the hydroxyl group can improve the anticoagulant property of silk protein material; amidation modification of carboxyl group can regulate the absorption-release property of silk protein to ions.

• Structure Construction of Silk Fibroin Biomaterials

Silk proteins can be processed into various forms with different structures due to their excellent biocompatibility, mechanical properties, adjustable degradation, easy processing, and abundant supply.

• Testing services

Before providing testing services, we can also provide you with preparation services from silk proteins to nanofibers. After that, we can provide your nanofibers with morphology testing, mechanical property testing, etc. We can provide you with integrated services in all aspects.

Lifeasible provides high-quality solutions for enterprises and research institutes, helping enterprises and research institutes solve problems in the research and development process, improve research efficiency and accelerate the acquisition of research results. In the future, we will continue to uphold the spirit of never stopping and advancing with the times, keep up with the development trend of the biomaterials industry, and provide users with more excellent products and quality services. Our professionals can provide you with solutions about silk protein nanofibers, if the product you want is not on our list, please contact us, our services are constantly being updated, and we can customize professional solutions for you.