一个国际科研团队最近报告说，他们将蛛丝蛋白与蚕丝蛋白相结合，制造出一种低成本的生物复合材料，可作为伤口敷料促进愈合，还有望代替天然皮肤用于移植手术。

这种材料由瑞典皇家理工学院和印度理工学院高哈蒂校区研究人员共同开发，已在体外实验中表现出良好效果，即将开展动物实验。

蛛丝蛋白具有高弹性、高强度和优良的生物学性能。研究人员用转基因手段培育大肠杆菌，生产出重组蛛丝蛋白。这种蛋白结合了一些人类皮肤里的天然物质，如促进细胞结合的物质、生长因子和抗菌蛋白质，可以促进皮肤细胞生长。

重组蛛丝蛋白生产成本较高、难以量产，研究人员将它用作涂层，与蚕丝蛋白制成的基底相结合。蚕丝蛋白没有生物活性，但可以低成本量产。这样得到的复合材料兼具两者的优点，制成片状可以当作敷料，制成多孔海绵状则可以成为人造皮肤的框架。

研究人员在美国化学学会下属期刊《应用材料与界面》（ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces）上发表论文说，他们在体外实验中将这种材料与多种皮肤细胞共同培养，成功生成类似天然皮肤的层状组织。

用外来材料促进伤口愈合的难点在于，在刺激皮肤细胞新生的同时，要防止细菌感染和有害的免疫反应。研究人员说，新材料能使皮肤细胞按天然方式生长、结合，并具备抗菌能力。（来源：新华社）

Recombinant Spider Silk Functionalized Silkworm Silk Matrices as Potential Bioactive Wound Dressings and Skin Grafts

Abstract  Silk is considered to be a potential biomaterial for a wide number of biomedical applications. Silk fibroin (SF) can be retrieved in sufficient quantities from the cocoons produced by silkworms. While it is easy to formulate into scaffolds with favorable mechanical properties, the natural SF does not contain bioactive functions. Spider silk proteins, on the contrary, can be produced in fusion with bioactive protein domains, but the recombinant procedures are expensive, and large-scale production is challenging. We combine the two types of silk to fabricate affordable, functional tissue-engineered constructs for wound-healing applications. Nanofibrous mats and microporous scaffolds made of natural silkworm SF are used as a bulk material that are top-coated with the recombinant spider silk protein (4RepCT) in fusion with a cell-binding motif, antimicrobial peptides, and a growth factor. For this, the inherent silk properties are utilized to form interactions between the two silk types by self-assembly. The intended function, that is, improved cell adhesion, antimicrobial activity, and growth factor stimulation, could be demonstrated for the obtained functionalized silk mats. As a skin prototype, SF scaffolds coated with functionalized silk are cocultured with multiple cell types to demonstrate formation of a bilayered tissue construct with a keratinized epidermal layer under in vitro conditions. The encouraging results support this strategy of fabrication of an affordable bioactive SF-spider silk-based biomaterial for wound dressings and skin substitutes.

原文链接：https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acsami.8b05853