Weizmann Institute of Science
The millennial evolution of biological organisms gained an extremely high complexity of functional needs to ensure survival, encompassing biochemical, biological, and biophysical multi- length scale processes. In such a context, the generation of new biomaterials having specific properties promotes a widespread use in a myriad of different applications. An outstanding example of self- assembly protein for macroscopic material generation has been attributed to silkworm to realize silk spun. This complex manipulation consists of a multistep hierarchical organization in the structural conformation triggered by micelles break up and fibroin alignment under precise environmental and elongational flow conditions. Recently, the use of reconstituted silk fibroin (RSF) enhanced the possibilities to realize synthetic biomaterials having properties comparable with the native silk fibroin (NSF). However, a lack of general perspectives and comprehensive studies have not reduced the gap in unveiling the RSF physical-chemical properties for precise structure generation. Here, a deep study aimed to investigate the environmental and the fluid dynamic conditions to obtain different structures morphologies and structural configurations by controlling three independent parameters: pH, concentration and shear forces. In such a context, microfluidics has been used as a platform to precisely estimate the shear rate regime that locally acts at the interface during the rheological structure generation. Eventually, optical and electron microscopy have been used for a full characterization of the final multiphase structural conformation and geometrical morphology. Moreover, mechanical viscosity measurements have been performed using the rheometer at the same shear forces adopted for microfluidics. This work lays the basis for a deeper understanding of the mechanism governing the non- linear structures generations and open new avenues in the "personalized" silk materials.
Abstract
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