Chitosan/silk fibroin composite scaffolds for wound dressing

Three-dimensional (3D) chitosan/silk fibroin (CS/SF) porous composite scaffolds have been prepared by simply coating a thin layer of CS onto spunlaced SF scaffolds via hydrogen-bonding assembly technique, and they were characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and mechanical property measurements. The results show that porous scaffolds have a pore diameter around 50-200 mu m, and improved mechanical property compared with SF, resulting from strong intermolecular hydrogen bonding interactions between CS and SF, together with the maintained beta-sheet structure of SF. The medical and biological properties of the composite scaffolds were further evaluated. The results demonstrate that they possess good biocompatibility and a broad spectrum of antimicrobial properties. The in vivo animal experiments show that the composite scaffolds promote skin regeneration of rats without any teratogenic effect and inflection, thus they are very promising in the application of wound dressings. (C) 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.