Now an artificial heart can be made of spider silk
Researchers have developed cardiac muscle tissue made
of spider silk, to investigate whether artificial silk protein could be
suitable for engineering cardiac tissue. Ischaemic diseases such as cardiac infarction
leads to irreversible loss of cardiac muscle cells, which is the main cause of
reduced cardiac functionality that affects the working of the
heart. According to the researchers at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität
Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) in Germany, silk could be the key to artificial cardiac
tissue. Or, the protein that gives the silk its structure and mechanical
stability called as fibroin. For the study, published in the journal Advanced
Functional Materials, the team investigated the suitability of the silk
protein eADF4(?16) produced in the laboratory for the production of cardiac
tissue.
The research involved applying a thin layer of the
silk protein to a glass slide. The technique is based on the fact that cells
with a negatively charged surface adhere to films made of the eADF4(?16) silk
protein due to its positive charge. The study focussed, in particular, on
cardiac cell functionality. The researchers compared these cells to cells that
they had applied to a film of fibronectin, which is similar to the natural
environment of cardiac cells. No functional differences between the two
were observed. The researchers were able to demonstrate, for instance, that
factors responsible for hypertrophy — enlargement of cardiac cells for instance
in athletes and pregnant women — also led to a growth in volume in the cardiac
cells that had been cultured on a film of eADF4(?16). The possibilities of
printing artificial silk proteins using 3D printing technology therefore
represent the first steps towards future methods for engineering functional
cardiac tissue, the researchers noted.
23.08.2017
Where there is no struggle, there
is no strength
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