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Protein hydrogels are an important class of materials for applications in biotechnology and medicine. The fine-tuning of their sequence, molecular weight, and stereochemistry offers unique opportunities to engineer biofunctionality, biocompatibility, and biodegradability into these materials. Here we report a new family of redox-sensitive protein hydrogels with controllable mechanical properties composed of recombinant silk-elastin-like protein polymers (SELPs). The SELPs were designed and synthesized with different ratios of silk-to-elastin blocks that incorporated periodic cysteine residues. The cysteine-containing SELPs were thermally responsive in solution and rapidly formed hydrogels at body temperature under physiologically relevant, mild oxidative conditions. Upon addition of a low concentration of hydrogen peroxide at 0.05% (w/v), gelation occurred within minutes for the SELPs with a protein concentration of approximately 4% (w/v). The gelation time and mechanical properties of the hydrogels were dependent on the ratio of silk to elastin. These polymer designs also significantly affected redox-sensitive release of a highly polar model drug from the hydrogels in vitro. Furthermore, oxidative gelation was performed at other physiologically relevant temperatures, and this resulted in hydrogels with tunable mechanical properties, thus, providing a secondary level of control over hydrogel stiffness. These newly developed injectable SELP hydrogels with redox-sensitive features and tunable mechanical properties may be potentially useful as biomaterials with broad applications in controlled drug delivery and tissue engineering.

As a functional material, silk has been widely used in tissue engineering, drug release, and tissue regeneration. Increasing subtle control of silk hierarchical structures and thus specific functional performance is required for these applications but remains a challenge. Here, we report a novel silk nanofiber solution achieved through tuning solvent systems used to generate the material. Unlike the β-sheet rich silk nanofibers reported previously, these new silk nanofibers are mainly composed of amorphous structures and maintain a solution state in aqueous environments. The amorphous silk nanofibers are stable enough for storage and also metastable, making them easy to use in the further fabrication of materials through various processes. Silk scaffolds, hydrogels, and films were prepared from these silk nanofiber solutions. These silk materials from amorphous nanofiber solutions show different properties and tunable performance features. Therefore, these amorphous silk nanofibers are suitable units or building blocks for designing silk-based materials.

Silkworm silk has been widely used as a textile fiber, as biomaterials and in optically functional materials due to its extraordinary properties. The β-sheet-rich natural nanofiber units of about 10-50 nm in diameter are often considered the origin of these properties, yet it remains unclear how silk self-assembles into these hierarchical structures. A new system composed of β-sheet-rich silk nanofibers about 10-20 nm in diameter is reported here, where these nanofibers formed into "flowing hydrogels" at 0.5-2% solutions and could be transformed back into the solution state at lower concentrations, even with a high β-sheet content. This is in contrast with other silk processed materials, where significant β-sheet content negates reversibility between solution and solid states. These fibers are formed by regulating the self-assembly process of silk in aqueous solution, which changes the distribution of negative charges while still supporting β-sheet formation in the structures. Mechanistically, there appears to be a shift toward negative charges along the outside of the silk nanofibers in our present study, resulting in a higher zeta potential (above -50 mV) than previous silk materials which tend to be below -30 mV. The higher negative charge on silk nanofibers resulted in electrostatic repulsion strong enough to negate further assembly of the nanofibers. Changing silk concentration changed the balance between hydrophobic interactions and electrostatic repulsion of β-sheet-rich silk nanofibers, resulting in reversible hydrogel-solution transitions. Furthermore, the silk nanofibers could be disassembled into shorter fibers and even nanoparticles upon ultrasonic treatment following the transition from hydrogel to solution due to the increased dispersion of hydrophobic smaller particles, without the loss of β-sheet content, and with retention of the ability to transition between hydrogel and solution states through reversion to longer nanofibers during self-assembly. These reversible solution-hydrogel transitions were tunable with ultrasonic intensity, time, or temperature.

Electrochemically controlled, reversible assembly of biopolymers into hydrogel structures is a promising technique for on-demand cell or drug encapsulation and release systems. An electrochemically sol-gel transition has been demonstrated in regenerated Bombyx mori silk fibroin, offering a controllable way to generate biocompatible and reversible adhesives and other biomedical materials. Despite the involvement of an electrochemically triggered electrophoretic migration of the silk molecules, the mechanism of the reversible electrogelation remains unclear. It is, however, known that the freshly prepared silk electrogels (e-gels) adopt a predominantly random coil conformation, indicating a lack of cross-linking as well as thermal, mechanical, and morphological stabilities. In the present work, the tuning of covalent and physical β-sheet cross-links in silk hydrogels was studied for programming the structural properties. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed delicate morphology, including locally aligned fibrillar structures, in silk e-gels, preserved by combining glutaraldehyde-cross-linking and ethanol dehydration. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopic analysis of either electrogelled, vortex-induced or spontaneously formed silk hydrogels showed that the secondary structure of silk e-gels was tunable between non-β-sheet-dominated and β-sheet-dominated states. Dynamic oscillatory rheology confirmed the mechanical reinforcement of silk e-gels provided by controlled chemical and physical cross-links. The selective incorporation of either chemical or physical or both cross-links into the electrochemically responsive, originally unstructured silk e-gel should help in the design for electrochemically responsive protein polymers.

We report formation of biocompatible hydrogels using physically cross-linked biopolymers. Gelation of silk fibroin (from B. mori silkworm) aqueous solution was effected by ultrasonication and used to entrap blended, un-cross-linked, hyaluronic acid (HA) without chemical cross-linking. HA was formed into silk/HA blended hydrogels with different mixing ratios, forming homogeneous materials with stable swelling behavior when the HA content was less than 40 wt %. This is a novel approach to HA hydrogel systems, which otherwise require chemical cross-linking. Further, these systems exploit the beneficial material and biological properties of both polymers. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), temperature modulated DSC, and thermal gravimetric analysis were used to show that well-blended silk/HA hydrogel systems formed without macrophase separation. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy was used to determine secondary structures from the amide I region of silk protein by spectral subtraction and Fourier-self-deconvolution. The β-sheet crystal fraction of the silk protein increased with increase of HA content (26-35 wt %), which resulted in stable, crystalline features in the blend hydrogel materials, favorable features to support human mesenchymal stem cell attachment and proliferation. Scanning electron microscopy was used to characterize morphology. β-Sheet content controlled the stability of the silk/HA hydrogel systems, with a minimum crystalline content needed to maintain a stable hydrogel system of ∼26 wt %. This value is close to the β-sheet content in pure silk fibroin hydrogels. These novel nonchemically cross-linked blend hydrogels may be useful for biomedical applications due to biocompatibility and the widespread utility of hydrogel systems. The attributes of HA in combination with the features of silk, offer a useful suite of properties, combining the mechanical integrity and slow degradation of silk with the control of water interactions and biological signaling of HA.

Protein hydrogels are an important class of materials for applications in biotechnology and medicine. The fine-tuning of their sequence, molecular weight, and stereochemistry offers unique opportunities to engineer biofunctionality, biocompatibility, and biodegradability into these materials. Here we report a new family of redox-sensitive protein hydrogels with controllable mechanical properties composed of recombinant silk-elastin-like protein polymers (SELPs). The SELPs were designed and synthesized with different ratios of silk-to-elastin blocks that incorporated periodic cysteine residues. The cysteine-containing SELPs were thermally responsive in solution and rapidly formed hydrogels at body temperature under physiologically relevant, mild oxidative conditions. Upon addition of a low concentration of hydrogen peroxide at 0.05% (w/v), gelation occurred within minutes for the SELPs with a protein concentration of approximately 4% (w/v). The gelation time and mechanical properties of the hydrogels were dependent on the ratio of silk to elastin. These polymer designs also significantly affected redox-sensitive release of a highly polar model drug from the hydrogels in vitro. Furthermore, oxidative gelation was performed at other physiologically relevant temperatures, and this resulted in hydrogels with tunable mechanical properties, thus, providing a secondary level of control over hydrogel stiffness. These newly developed injectable SELP hydrogels with redox-sensitive features and tunable mechanical properties may be potentially useful as biomaterials with broad applications in controlled drug delivery and tissue engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]