Facile preparation of bioactive silk fibroin/hyaluronic acid hydrogels

Proteins and polysaccharides are primary components in mammal soft tissue. In this study, we established a rapid hydrogel to imitate the nature extracellular matrix via silk fibroin (SF) and hyaluronic acid (HA) blend hydrogel. SF/HA hydrogel was prepared effectively, and its formation time was shorted. With the increase of HA content, the water absorption, porosity and breaking strengths of the hydrogel increased, while hydrophilic of the hydrogel was enhanced extremely determined by contact angle decreasing. Especially, the SF/HA hydrogel with a ratio of 5:5 presented the highest water absorption and mechanical properties. The molecule conformation of the composite hydrogel was mainly amorphous structure and contained the small number of β-sheets which gradually decreases with the increase of HA content. In drug release test, accumulative release ratio of the composite gel was about 80% at day 40. And the mass loss of the hydrogel reached approximately 78% in vitro degradation. In vivo, the SF/HA hydrogels presented good histocompatibility and promoted vascular-like tissue regeneration when were implanted subcutaneously of Sprague Dawley rats. This study provides a new approach to fabricate silk-based biomaterials for soft tissue regeneration.