Abstract
Recently, scientific and technological interest in the synthesis of novel peptide-based hydrogel materials have grown dramatically. Applications of such materials mostly concern the biomedical field with examples covering sectors such as drug delivery, tissue engineering, and production of scaffolds for cell growth, thanks to their biocompatibility and biodegradability. In this work we synthesized Fmoc-Phe3 based hydrogels of different chirality by using a biocatalytic approach. Moreover, we investigated the possibility of employing a crosslinker during the biosynthetic process and we studied and compared some chemico-physical features of both crosslinked and non-crosslinked hydrogels. In particular, we investigated the rheological properties of such materials, as well as their swelling ability, stability in aqueous medium, and their structure by SEM and AFM analysis. Crosslinked and non-crosslinked hydrogels could be formed by this procedure with comparable yields but distinct chemico-physical features. We entrapped dexamethasone within nanopolymeric particles based on PLGA coated or not with chitosan and we embedded these nanoparticles into the hydrogels. Dexamethasone release from such a nanopolymer/hydrogel system was controlled and sustained and dependent on genipin crosslinking degree. The possibility of efficiently coupling a drug delivery system to hydrogel materials seem particularly promising for tissue engineering applications, where the hydrogel could provide cells the necessary support for their growth, while nanoparticles could favor cell growth or differentiation by providing them the necessary bioactive molecules.
Highlights
Tissue engineering and regenerative medicine are part of an emerging multi- and interdisciplinary field that applies the principles of engineering and life sciences towards the development of biological substitutes [1,2]
The direct encapsulation of DXM into the hydrogel seems to provide a more efficient and sustained release over time, making the system appealing for drug delivery approaches
Fmoc-Phe3 based hydrogels of different chirality prepared by using a biocatalytic approach have been chemically crosslinked with genipin
Summary
Tissue engineering and regenerative medicine are part of an emerging multi- and interdisciplinary field that applies the principles of engineering and life sciences towards the development of biological substitutes [1,2]. We characterized the rheological and chemico-physical properties of the obtained materials and we compared them with those of non-crosslinked ones in order to assess if genipin-mediated crosslinking could provide attractive features to the hydrogels in view of their use in tissue engineering approaches. Such materials may be used as artificial scaffolds for cell growth, an approach that may lead to future applications in tissue engineering. We loaded the hydrogels with a model drug, dexamethasone (DXM), and we studied its release kinetics from the different hydrogel materials by using nanopolymeric vectors based on polylactic-co-glycolic polymers embededded with the Desamethsone (DXM) with the aim to modulate drug release
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