Electrospun silk fibroin-hydroxybutyl chitosan nanofibrous scaffolds to biomimic extracellular matrix

Silk fibroin (SF)-hydroxybutyl chitosan (HBC) blend nanofibrous scaffolds were fabricated using 1,1,1,3,3,3-hexafluoro-2-propanol (HFIP) and trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) as solvents to biomimic the native ECM by electrospinning. SEM results showed that the average nanofibrous diameter increased when the content of HBC was raised from 20% to 100%. Whereas water contact angle measurements confirmed that SF/HBC nanofibrous scaffolds with different weight ratios were of good hydrophilicity. Both the tensile strength and the elongation at break were improved obviously when the weight ratio of SF to HBC was 20:80. (13)C-NMR clarified that SF and HBC molecules existed in H-bond interactions, but HBC did not induce SF conformation to transform from random coil form to β-sheet structure. Moreover, the use of genipin vapour not only induced conformation of SF to convert from random coil to β-sheet structure but also acted as a cross-linking agent for SF and HBC. Cell viability studies demonstrated that SF/HBC nanofibrous scaffolds presented good cellular compatibility. Thus, electrospun SF/HBC blended nanofibres may provide an ideal biomimic tissue-engineering scaffold.