Silk-Pectin Hydrogel with Superior Mechanical Properties, Biodegradability, and Biocompatibility

A new method is developed to prepare silk hydrogels and silk-pectin hydrogels via dialysis against methanol to obtain hydrogels with high concentrations of silk fibroin. The relationship between themechanical and biological properties and the structure of the silk-pectin hydrogels is subsequently evaluated. The present results suggest that pectin associates with silk molecules when the silk concentration exceeds 15wt%, suggesting that a silk concentration of over 15wt% is critical to construct interacting silk-pectin networks. The silk-pectin hydrogel reported here is composed of a heterogeneous network, which is different from fiber-reinforced, interpenetrated networks and double-network hydrogels, as well as high-stiffness hydrogels (elastic modulus of 4.7 +/- 0.9MPa, elastic stress limit of 3.9 +/- 0.1MPa, and elastic strain limit of 48.4 +/- 0.5%) with regard to biocompatibility and biodegradability.