Robust Biological Fibers Based on Widely Available Proteins: Facile Fabrication and Suturing Application.

ABSTRACT

Lightweight and mechanically strong protein fibers are promising for many technical applications. Despite the widespread investigation of biological fibers based on spider silk and silkworm proteins, it remains a challenge to develop low-cost proteins and convenient spinning technology for the fabrication of robust biological fibers. Since there are plenty of widely available proteins in nature, it is meaningful to investigate the preparation of fibers by the proteins and explore their biomedical applications. Here, a facile microfluidic strategy is developed for the scalable construction of biological fibers via a series of easily accessible spherical and linear proteins including chicken egg, quail egg, goose egg, bovine serum albumin, milk, and collagen. It is found that the crosslinking effect in microfluidic chips and double-drawn treatment after spinning are crucial for the formation of fibers. Thus, high tensile strength and toughness are realized in the fibers, which are comparable or even higher than that of many recombinant spider silks or regenerated silkworm fibers. Moreover, the suturing applications in rat and minipig models are realized by employing the mechanically strong fibers. Therefore, this work opens a new direction for the production of biological fibers from natural sources.