Design of Recombinant Spider Silk Proteins for Cell Type Specific Binding.

Cytophilic (cell-adhesive) materials are very important for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. However, for engineering hierarchically organized tissue structures comprising different cell types, cell-specific attachment and guidance are decisive. In this context, materials made of recombinant spider silk proteins are promising scaffolds, since they exhibit high biocompatibility, biodegradability and the underlying proteins can be genetically functionalized. Here, previously established spider silk variants were genetically modified with cell adhesive peptide sequences from extracellular matrix proteins, including IKVAV, YIGSR, QHREDGS and KGD. Interestingly, eADF4(C16)-KGD as one of 18 tested variants was cell-selective for C2C12 mouse myoblasts, one out of eleven tested cell lines. Co-culturing with B50 rat neuronal cells confirmed the cell-specificity of eADF4(C16)-KGD material surfaces for C2C12 mouse myoblast adhesion. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.