Article
Protein-Based Fiber Materials in Medicine: A Review
Nanomaterials
(2018)
Abstract
Fibrous materials have garnered much interest in the field of biomedical engineering due to their high surface-area-to-volume ratio, porosity, and tunability. Specifically, in the field of tissue engineering, fiber meshes have been used to create biomimetic nanostructures that allow for cell attachment, migration, and proliferation, to promote tissue regeneration and wound healing, as well as controllable drug delivery. In addition to the properties of conventional, synthetic polymer fibers, fibers made from natural polymers, such as proteins, can exhibit enhanced biocompatibility, bioactivity, and biodegradability. Of these proteins, keratin, collagen, silk, elastin, zein, and soy are some the most common used in fiber fabrication. The specific capabilities of these materials have been shown to vary based on their physical properties, as well as their fabrication method. To date, such fabrication methods include electrospinning, wet/dry jet spinning, dry spinning, centrifugal spinning, solution blowing, self-assembly, phase separation, and drawing. This review serves to provide a basic knowledge of these commonly utilized proteins and methods, as well as the fabricated fibers’ applications in biomedical research.
Keywords
- protein,
- nanofibers,
- biomaterials fabrication,
- medicine,
- tissue engineering,
- wound healing,
- drug delivery
Disciplines
Publication Date
June 22, 2018
DOI
10.3390/nano8070457
Publisher Statement
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (CC BY 4.0).
Citation Information
Kelsey G. DeFrates, Robert Moore, Julia Borgesi, Guowei Lin, et al.. "Protein-Based Fiber Materials in Medicine: A Review" Nanomaterials Vol. 8 Iss. 7 (2018) p. 457 ISSN: 2079-4991 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/vincent-beachley/23/
Creative Commons license
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC_BY International License.