Honeybee Silk and Chitosan: A Promising Biocomposite for Wound Healing Applications

Biopolymeric materials, especially composites, are extensively used as wound healing scaffolds in tissue engineering due to their ability to mimic the essential properties of the native tissue. This research aims to investigate the usability of honeybee silk (HS), which could be an alternative silk source to silkworm silk, in tissue engineering (TE) applications. HS, which has not been used in scaffold fabrication, and chitosan (CH), frequently used in TE, were combined to produce a novel and cost-effective biocompatible CH–HS scaffold.

HS, CH and CH–HS were characterized using XRD, FTIR and SEM to determine structure and functional groups. SEM analysis was performed for different CH concentrations (0.5%, 1% and 2%) and different ratios of CH:HS (1:2, 1:1 and 2:1, respectively). The antioxidant properties, antibacterial activity and as well as biofilm formation and ability to destroy mature biofilm activity of HS and CH–HS were shown. The human breast cancer MDA-MB231 cells were used to investigate possible effects on cell viability proliferation.

The smallest pore size was determined to be 70.7 µm on average at a ratio of 1:1 at 1% CH concentration. The antioxidant properties of HS and CH–HS were shown. The CH–HS showed antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, as well as inhibition of biofilm formation and destruction of mature biofilm. Additionally, the MDA-MB-231 cells appeared significantly elongated and denser when seeded on the CH–HS over 24 h and 48 h.

This study demonstrated the usability of honeybee silk, a promising but underutilized material, tissue engineering and its potential for future studies. Considering the materials used and our promising results, the synthesized CH–HS scaffold was observed to have microbiological and cellular effects that may be useful in future biomedical applications for wound healing.