Evaluation of the potential of elastic fiber orientation produced by fibroblasts cultured on silk fibroin-based scaffolds for application in tissue engineering approaches and regenerative medicine

• Grant number: 24/17913-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: February 20, 2025
• End date: February 19, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Medicine
• Principal Investigator: Sílvio Roberto Consonni
• Grantee: Lizandra Maia de Sousa
• Supervisor: Joaquim Miguel Antunes Correia de Oliveira
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biologia (IB). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Universidade do Minho (UMinho), Portugal
• Associated to the scholarship: 22/02368-4 - "Alterations of the vaginal wall and uterosacral ligament of women with severe pelvic organ prolapse - a morphological and molecular approach to elastic fibers", BP.DR

Abstract

Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine (TERM) proposes advanced approaches in the biomedical field for the regeneration of injured or degenerated tissues. Advances in the design and processing techniques of biomaterials aimed at obtaining a porous three-dimensional matrix, "scaffold", have resulted in a significant expansion of research applied to the area of ¿¿TERM. Silk fibroin (SF) from the silkworm Bombyx mori has stood out in TERM in recent years as a natural protein biomaterial that is easily accessible and has excellent mechanical properties. Furthermore, SF is a material used as a "scaffold" for applications in tissue engineering for load support, being able to mimic the extracellular matrix (ECM) of native tissue. Pathologies related to connective tissue are mainly associated with changes in the structure and shape of the proteins that make up the extracellular matrix. Among the pathologies associated with connective tissue, we can highlight pelvic organ prolapse (POP). Our hypothesis is that cellularized FS scaffolds and their formulations with different biomaterials can mimic the properties of the ECM of the uterosacral ligament that supports the pelvic organs in vivo and can be used as a scaffold for repair in POP surgeries. Thus, this study proposal aims to characterize the biomechanical properties of the biomaterial composed of FS and evaluate its elastogenic potential in the ECM in fibroblast cell culture.