Since 5000 years ago, silk has captivated and continues to amaze humans exploring its new exciting applications. Thanks to many cross-disciplinary types of research, it is now clear that silk is no more a simple fibre but an outstanding biopolymer. Before defining the current state of the art surrounding the field of silk-based materials for drug delivery, and looking toward their future, this chapter provides a general overview of silk proteins. Starting from the motivation of the research and the history of silk-based material, the chapter moves on describing different types of silk, with particular emphasis on Bombyx mori and spider ones. Then, a detailed description of the primary and secondary structure of silk proteins (fibroin/spidroin and sericin) is provided. The most common degumming processes and the modern biomedical applications for both fibroin and sericin are also reported.

Silk

Giulia Locatelli;Elia Bari
2020-01-01

Abstract

Since 5000 years ago, silk has captivated and continues to amaze humans exploring its new exciting applications. Thanks to many cross-disciplinary types of research, it is now clear that silk is no more a simple fibre but an outstanding biopolymer. Before defining the current state of the art surrounding the field of silk-based materials for drug delivery, and looking toward their future, this chapter provides a general overview of silk proteins. Starting from the motivation of the research and the history of silk-based material, the chapter moves on describing different types of silk, with particular emphasis on Bombyx mori and spider ones. Then, a detailed description of the primary and secondary structure of silk proteins (fibroin/spidroin and sericin) is provided. The most common degumming processes and the modern biomedical applications for both fibroin and sericin are also reported.
2020
978-1-83916-266-4
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11571/1347434
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