A native sericin wound dressing spun directly from silkworms enhances wound healing

It is attractive and challenging to develop a bioactive dressing based on native nondestructive sericin. Here, a native sericin wound dressing was secreted directly by silkworms bred through regulating their spinning behaviors. To be excited, our first reported wound dressing possesses original unique features of natural sericin, including natural structures and bioactivities. Besides, it has a porous fibrous network structure with a porosity of 75 %, thus achieving excellent air permeability. Moreover, the wound dressing exhibits pH-responsive degradability, softness, and super absorbency properties whose equilibrium water contents are no less than 75 % in various pH conditions. Furthermore, the sericin wound dressing demonstrates high mechanical strength, reaching 2.5 MPa tensile strength. Importantly, we confirmed good cell compatibility of sericin wound dressing that can support cell viability, proliferation, and migration for a long time. When tested in a mouse full-thickness skin wound model, the wound dressing efficiently accelerated the healing process. Our findings suggest that the sericin wound dressing has promising application and commercial value in wound repair.