A De Novo Designed Ultrashort Self-Assembling Peptide for the Development of Silk-Based Inks

Silk fibroin (SF) is a promising material in tissue engineering field thanks to its tuneable physico-chemical properties, aqueous processability and cytocompatibility. However, the use of SF-based inks in extrusion-based technologies is limited due to SF rheological properties. Here, a de novo designed ultrashort ionic complementary self-assembling peptide (UICP6) was used as to modulate the rheological profile of SF-based solutions. We herein present the characterisation physico-chemical and mechanical of SF UICP6 biomaterial inks and assessment of printability. This study demonstrates that the inclusion of an ultrashort self-assembling peptide enables enlarging of the processability window of SF-based biomaterial inks in extrusion bioprinting.