In vitro and in vivo evaluation for silk fibroin-coated electrospun resorbable poly(lactic acid) GTR barriers

Ideal guided tissue regeneration (GTR) barriers should possess the good characteristics like (a) biocompatibility (b) cell occlusion (c) space-making (d) osseointegration (e) clinical manageability. The aim of this two-year project is to prepare electrospun resorbable polylactic acid (PLA) membranes, incorporating them with silk fibroin to develop a novel guided tissue regeneration barrier for dental clinic applications. In this study, resorbable polylactic acid scaffolds will be fabricated by electrospinning then surface-coated by silk fibroin (SF) to enhance their biocompatibility, in vitro degradation, and surface wettability. In the first year, the physical and mechanical properties of electrospun SF/PLA membranes will be studied. The biological characteristics of electrospun SF/PLA barriers including the cytotoxicity, cell attachment and proliferation based on human dental stem cells will be evaluated. In the second year, the in vitro degradation and the in vivo animal studies of SF/PLA based GTR barriers will be carried out. It will shed some light whether the SF/PLA electrospun membrane is suitable for promoting the wound healing and tissue regeneration.