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Updated: May 13, 2026

Designing Silk-silk Protein Alloy Materials for Biomedical Applications
Published on: August 13, 2014
Intermolecular interactions between natural polysaccharides and silk fibroin protein
Songmin Shang1, Lei Zhu, Jintu Fan
1Institute of Textiles and Clothing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong. shang.songmin@polyu.edu.hk
Abstract:
Fabricating novel functional and structural materials from natural renewable and degradable materials has attracted much attention. Natural polysaccharides and proteins are the right natural candidates due to their unique structures and properties. The polysaccharide-protein composites or blends were widely investigated, however, there are few systematical studies on the interactions between natural polysaccharides and silk fibroin protein at the molecular level. Among various interactions, hydrogen bonding, electrostatic interactions and covalent bonding play important roles in the structure and properties of the corresponding materials. Therefore, the focus is placed on the three interactions types in this review. A future challenge is to create polysaccharide and protein composites or blends with tailored structure and properties for the wide applications.
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