| AVS 54th International Symposium | |
| Biomaterial Interfaces | Tuesday Sessions |
| Session BI-TuP |
| Session: | Biomaterials Interfaces Poster Session |
| Presenter: | P.A. Johnson, University of Wyoming |
| Authors: | P.A. Johnson, University of Wyoming H. Zhang, University of Wyoming C. Skinner, University of Wyoming T.G. Martinez-Servantez, University of Wyoming |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Spider silk is well known for its unique, outstanding material properties. Dragline spider silk in particular is one of the strongest natural materials with a high degree of elasticity. These properties, together with its inherent biodegradability and biocompatibility, make it a promising biomaterial for tissue engineering applications. Though the best material properties are derived from native dragline spider silk, producing spider silk naturally is not practical to generate sufficient quantities for biomedical applications. Recombinant spider silk proteins have been successfully produced in bacterial expression systems as well as in goat’s milk. In our studies we compared the surface properties and biological responses of native major ampullate silk from N. clavipes, the major ampullate proteins produced in E. coli, and the major ampullate proteins produced in goats’ milk. Thin films were cast from hexafluoroisopropanol and then treated with 90% methanol. The films with and without methanol treatment were characterized by AFM, SEM and contact angle analysis. The untreated films initially had very different surface properties, but after methanol treatment the contact angles and surface roughness converged to similar values. Once processes for generating consistent films were established, the biological response of the films was determined. Protein adsorption studies were conducted via mass sensitive techniques (QCM-D). Cellular responses were established to determine cell adhesion, cell morphology and cell proliferation. The films were protein resistant and inhibited cell adhesion. Therefore, to promote cell attachment and growth the spider silk films were modified with cell binding peptides.