Tussah Silk Fibroin Porous Scaffolds Prepared with a Mild Self-assembly Process for Controlled Drug Release

Besides excellent biodegradability and biocompatibility,a useful tissue engineering scaffold should provide favorable surface properties,outstanding mechanical strength and controlled drug release property. In this paper,a mild process to prepare porous tussah silk fibroin（ TSF） scaffolds from aqueous solution was described. The n-butanol was used to control the self-assembly of tussah silk. The scaffolds with different TSF concentrations and the same volume showed differences in pore size and distribution. The maximum porosity of the poprepared porous scaffolds was 80% in this paper. And the pore size of the prepared porous scaffolds with different concentrations was between 10μm and 230 μm. X-ray diffraction（ XRD） analysis revealed that amorphous TSF was crystallized to β-sheet secondary structure upon gelatin. The TSF scaffolds for controlled drug release was studied and the result showed that the time of drug release was significantly longer. The produced TSF scaffolds with sustained drug release have potential application in tissue engineering.