Chapter 2 - Functionalizing With Bioactive Peptides to Generate Bio-Instructive Scaffolds

Abstract

In the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, creating a biomaterial environment that interacts with cells to guide them toward desired lineages is an attractive translational strategy. To establish the desired signals from the environment, many studies are incorporating native tissues and growth factors in biomaterial scaffolds. These molecules often contain adhesion-binding sequences, which may potentially be replaced by synthetic peptides. Since adhesion-mediated signaling influences cell migration, growth, and differentiation, synthetic peptides can control cell fate by mimicking a desired binding sequence. There are many potentially available resources in terms of synthetic peptides and methods for identifying new peptides. This chapter emphasizes that although there are several studies in the field of tissue engineering that focus on adhesion peptides, there is great potential to better leverage peptides as a translational approach in the field. Replacing growth factors and extracellular proteins with their respective peptide binding sequences may potentially revolutionize the field, as peptides can be produced in large amounts with lower cost, reduced probability of nonspecific binding, and regulatory advantages. In this chapter, we review a variety of attractive peptide candidates in addition to methods to identify the next generation of bioactive peptides to drive the field of regenerative medicine forward.