Abstract: Nerve repair scaffolds are one of the effective ways to solve nerve damage. Three-dimensional anisotropic scaffolds can better mimic the natural extracellular matrix to smoothly bridge the damaged nerves. In this study, a three-dimensional anisotropic silk fibroin (SF) scaffold with a multi-channel structure was constructed using unidirectional freezing technology, and the pore morphology and structure of the channels were adjusted by changing the self-assembly time of silk fibroin and the temperature of the refrigerant to prepare a suitable scaffold substrate with a pore size of (140±79) μm. Then, using the “perfusion-freeze-drying” method, the tobacco mosaic virus mutant (TMV-RGD1, RGD: Arg-Gly-Asp) was introduced on the surface of the SF scaffold hole. In vitro experiments show that nerve cells can adhere well to the SF/TMV-RGD1 composite scaffold, and their axons can grow longitudinally along the pores. It has been proved that by introducing TMV-RGD on the surface of the pores of the SF scaffold, on the one hand, the active sequence of RGD is introduced at the chemical level, on the other hand, the anisotropic nanotopological structure of the substrate is enriched at the physical level. The cell affinity of the SF substrate is improved and the directional growth of cell axons is promoted.

Key words: Silk fibroin, Tobacco mosaic virus, Anisotropy, Neural repair