Injectable nanofibrillar hydrogels based on charge-complementary peptide co-assemblies

Abstract

CATCH(+/−) peptide co-assemblies form injectable, biocompatible hydrogels with sequence-dependent viscoelastic properties.

Engineering β-Sheet Peptide Coassemblies for Biomaterial Applications

“…Soto Morales et al evaluated the effect of charge-pairing on viscoelasticity, pore structure, and pore size in a set of 4 CATCH peptide variants: CATCH(4+), CATCH(4−), CATCH(6+), and CATCH(6−). 25 CATCH(4+/4−) peptides formed the stiffest hydrogels and showed 100% recovery of its initial stiffness within 132 s after high-strain disruption. In contrast, CATCH(6+/6−) formed the softest hydrogel and showed a lower percentage (63%) of shear recovery within 10 min compared to the other CATCH(±) pairs.…”

“…This ability to control hydrogel rigidity more finely could be useful in regenerative medicine where it is important to be able to match the stiffness of natural extracellular matrices in different tissues. Soto Morales et al evaluated the effect of charge-pairing on viscoelasticity, pore structure, and pore size in a set of 4 CATCH peptide variants: CATCH­(4+), CATCH(4−), CATCH­(6+), and CATCH(6−) . CATCH­(4+/4−) peptides formed the stiffest hydrogels and showed 100% recovery of its initial stiffness within 132 s after high-strain disruption.…”

“…Subcutaneous injection with and without adjuvant did not elicit antibody response, which provides evidence for their biocompatibility. 25 In summary, researchers have demonstrated the sensitivity of fiber architecture and material properties to molecular interactions between complementary partners which may allow these properties to be finely tuned to suit a desired technological application.…”

Controlling hydrogel properties by tuning non-covalent interactions in a charge complementary multicomponent system

“…14 A well-known method of synthesizing multicomponent gels is to mix two organic compounds bearing pH responsive, oppositely charged functionalities. 10,11,[15][16][17][18][19][20] In these gels, the electrostatic interactions between the positively and negatively charged groups act as the key driving force to build up the underlying network. 12,[20][21][22][23] Additionally, tuning of material properties is possible simply by controlling the surface charge on the bres through pH change.…”

Side‐Chain Chemistry Governs Hierarchical Order of Charge‐Complementary β‐sheet Peptide Coassemblies

“…Pairs that included CATCH(6R+) were excluded from these studies because they did not form self‐supporting materials per the vial inversion test. Aqueous mixtures of CATCH(6K+/6E−) ([total peptide] >2 mM) have previously been shown to form viscoelastic solids (i.e., gels) that undergo shear‐thinning and recovery [26a] . The CATCH(6K+/6D−) pair also formed a viscoelastic solid as indicated by a storage modulus (G′) to loss modulus (G′′) ratio (i.e., G′/G′′) greater than 1, or equivalently tan(δ) <1 (Figure 1c).…”