Biopolymers, such as silk fibroin, collagen, and chitosan, are promising candidates for a variety of applications that merge the fields of biomedical optics and biomaterials. Biocompatible silk fibroin, in particular, shows promise as a biomaterial, based on a number of attributes. Silk fibroin is the strongest and toughest natural fiber known and is easily formed into robust films of thermodyn...

Background Antheraea yamamai, also known as the Japanese oak silk moth, is a wild species of silk moth. Silk produced by A. yamamai, referred to as tensan silk, shows different characteristics such as thickness, compressive elasticity, and chemical resistance compared with common silk produced from the domesticated silkworm, Bombyx mori. Its unique characteristics have led to its use in many re...

BACKGROUND It is energetically expensive to synthesize certain amino acids. The proteins (spidroins) of spider major ampullate (MA) silk, MaSp1 and MaSp2, differ in amino acid composition. Glutamine and proline are prevalent in MaSp2 and are expensive to synthesize. Since most orb web spiders express high proline silk they might preferentially attain the amino acids needed for silk from food an...

The functional properties of six distinct electrospun silk material groups were evaluated to assess conformational and biocompatible characteristics related to wound dressings. In a hydrated state, all six silk matrices exhibited absorption, water vapor transmission, oxygen permeation and enzymatic biodegradation suitable for full-thickness wound sites. Employing constrained drying techniques, ...

Silk continues to amaze. This review unravels the most recent progress in silk science, spanning from fundamental insights medical silks. Key advances flow are examined, with specific reference role of metal ions switching a storage spinning state. Orthogonal thermoplastic molding is described, as transfer principles for triggering flow-induced crystallization other non-silk polymers. Other exc...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The Silk flow-diverter stent is increasingly used to treat complex intracranial aneurysms including wide-neck, fusiform aneurysms. Sparse data are available concerning long-term results of this technique. We report our 5-year experience with Silk stent treatment of intracranial aneurysms. MATERIALS AND METHODS A retrospective review of our prospectively maintained datab...

In the past few years a number of reviews, books and journal articles featuring silks have been published. Silks are produced by over 41,000 species of spiders (class Arachnida) and by many insects (terrestrial and aquatic), particularly in the order Lepidoptera (Foelix, 1996); they are defined as externally spun fibrous material generated from protein secretions. The cocoon silk from the domes...

In this study, Schwann cells, at a density of 1 × 10(5) cells/well, were cultured on regenerated silk fibroin nanofibers (305 ± 84 nm) prepared using the electrospinning method. Schwann cells cultured on the silk fibroin nanofibers appeared more ordered, their processes extended further, and they formed more extensive and complex interconnections. In addition, the silk fibroin nanofibers had no...

We used well-defined, fluorescence-free Raman spectra of single silk fibres to study silk ultrastructure. Major ampullate (MA) silk was reeled from the Araneus diadematus spider under controlled conditions. With a custom-built stress-strain gauge, we examined the mechanical properties of this silk both before and after supercontraction in a range of solvents. The solvents were found to modify t...

Silk fibers suffer from microstructural changes due to various external environmental conditions including daily washings. In this paper, we take the backscattering Mueller matrix images of silk samples for non-destructive and real-time quantitative characterization of the wavelength-scale microstructure and examination of the effects of washing by different detergents. The 2D images of the 16 ...