Electro-responsive silk fibroin microneedles for controlled release of insulin

To date, very limited work has been done on convenient and active control of insulin release. Herein, we report an electro-responsive insulin delivery system based on thiolated silk fibroin. The disulfide cross-linking points in TSF were reduced and broken to form sulfhydryl groups under electrification, which led to the increase of microneedle swelling degree and promoted insulin release. After power failure, the sulfhydryl group is oxidised to form disulfide bond crosslinking point again, resulting in the reduction of microneedle swelling degree and thus the reduction of release rate. The insulin loaded in the electro-responsive insulin delivery system showed good reversible electroresponsive release performance. The addition of graphene reduced the microneedle resistance and increased the drug release rate under current conditions. In vivo studies on type 1 diabetic mice show that electro-responsive insulin delivery system effectively controls the blood glucose before and after feeding by switching on and off the power supply, and this blood glucose control can be maintained within the safe range (100–200 mg/dL) for a long time (11h). Such electrically responsive delivery microneedles show potential for integration with glucose signal monitoring and are expected to build closed-loop insulin delivery systems.