Chinese Journal of Tissue Engineering Research ›› 2012, Vol. 16 ›› Issue (43): 8100-8104.doi: 10.3969/j.issn.2095-4344.2012.43.025

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Silk fibroin as a scaffold material for corneal tissue engineering

Ma Rui-jue1, 2, Guo Hui-ling1, Du Gai-ping1, Huang Yi-fei1   

  1. 1Department of Ophthalmology, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing 100853, China
    2Medical College of Nankai University, Tianjin 300070, China
  • Received:2012-01-31 Revised:2012-03-11 Online:2012-10-21 Published:2012-10-21
  • Contact: Huang Yi-fei, Doctor, Chief physician, Professor, Department of Ophthalmology, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing 100853, China 301yk@sina.com
  • About author:Ma Rui-jue★, Studying for master’s degree, Department of Ophthalmology, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing 100853, China; Medical College of Nankai University, Tianjin 300070, China mrjxjha@163.com

Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Silk fibroin has the properties of pellucidness, structural plasticity, single component, mechanical strength, toughness and biocompatibility.
OBJECTIVE: To review the research progress of silk fibroin as a scaffold material for corneal tissue engineering at home and abroad.
METHODS: Databases of PubMed (1980/2011) and CNKI (1990/2011) were selected to retrieve the related articles about silk fibroin and cornea with the keywords of “silk fibroin, corneal, ocular” in English and Chinese, respectively.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Owing to the good properties of silk fibroin extracted from nature silk, such as good biocompatibility, special mechanical property, optic transparency and controlled degradation rate, the silk fibroin cannot only be applied in the reconstruction of corneal tissue structure, but also be combined with other tissue materials. The silk fibroin has become an ideal material for corneal tissue engineering. It has been proved that many kinds of corneal cells can grow well on the silk fibroin, and however, there are rare studies about application of cells cultured in vitro in animal models. In addition, there are few data addressing the influence of implantation of silk fibroin into the cornea, which are problems to be solved.

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