@article {19333, title = {A silk fibroin hydrogel with reversible sol{\textendash}gel transition}, journal = {Rsc Advances}, volume = {7}, year = {2017}, month = {2017-04-06 00:00:00}, pages = {24085{\textendash}24096}, publisher = {royal society of chemistry}, abstract = {

In this report, a novel silk fibroin hydrogel with a reversible sol{\textendash}gel transition capacity is presented, in which
the base material of this reversible hydrogel is hydrophilic silk fibroin (HSF) obtained by immersing a dried
regenerated Bombyx mori silk fibroin (SF) condensate in deionized water (DI water) and collecting its
lixivium. The resulting HSF sol can exhibit an enhanced sol{\textendash}gel transition within several hours at suitable
temperatures (25{\textendash}50 C) without any exterior additive, even at extremely low concentrations (\<0.2\%, w/
v). The HSF gel can perform thixotropic, reversible gel{\textendash}sol transitions triggered by a facile cycled shearthinning and resting procedure. Reversible sol{\textendash}gel transition kinetics analyses and dynamic measurements of the micro-structure transformation during the transition demonstrate that both the bsheet
self-assembling process and metastable hydrogen bonding (H-bond) interactions among these large scale b-sheet aggregates play essential roles in the significant enhancement of the reversible HSF
sol{\textendash}gel transition. Due to the reversible, thixotropic sol{\textendash}gel transitions and suitable viscoelasticity of its
shear-thinning system for matching random sizes/shapes, the HSF system is possibly an alternative
injectable hydrogel for applications in 3-dimensional (3D) cell culture and tissue repair in situ.

}, keywords = {Silk Fibroin, sol-gel process}, issn = {20462069}, doi = {10.1039/c7ra02682j}, author = {Yin, Z. and Wu, F. and Xing, T. and Fu, H. and Yadavalli, V. and Kundu, S. C. and Lu, S.} }