Abstract
Self-assembling peptide hydrogels can be modified regarding their biodegradability, their chemical and mechanical properties and their nanofibrillar structure. Thus, self-assembling peptide hydrogels might be suitable scaffolds for regenerative therapies and tissue engineering. Owing to the use of various peptide concentrations and buffer compositions, the self-assembling peptide hydrogels might be influenced regarding their mechanical characteristics. Therefore, the mechanical properties and stability of a set of self-assembling peptide hydrogels, consisting of 11 amino acids, made from four beta sheet self-assembling peptides in various peptide concentrations and buffer compositions were studied. The formed self-assembling peptide hydrogels exhibited stiffnesses ranging from 0.6 to 205 kPa. The hydrogel stiffness was mostly affected by peptide sequence followed by peptide concentration and buffer composition. All self-assembling peptide hydrogels examined provided a nanofibrillar network formation. A maximum self-assembling peptide hydrogel dissolution of 20% was observed for different buffer solutions after 7 days. The stability regarding enzymatic and bacterial digestion showed less degradation in comparison to the self-assembling peptide hydrogel dissolution rate in buffer. The tested set of self-assembling peptide hydrogels were able to form stable scaffolds and provided a broad spectrum of tissue-specific stiffnesses that are suitable for a regenerative therapy.
Highlights
Degradable polymeric hydrogels display several features to act as matrices for tissue engineering such as their nanofibrillar structure, high water content, elasticity and diffusion properties for small molecules [1]
To prove the formation of nanofibrillar structure, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) pictures were taken of dry SAP hydrogels from the four SAP sequences and compared to the literature [39]
We have demonstrated that the SAPs (P11-4, P11-8, P11-13/14 and P11-28/29) evaluated in the present study form fibrillar networks with fibril diameters in the range of 23–38 nm
Summary
Degradable polymeric hydrogels display several features to act as matrices for tissue engineering such as their nanofibrillar structure, high water content, elasticity and diffusion properties for small molecules [1]. Low molecular weight gelators such as peptides, saccharides or nucleotides can be used to build up the three-dimensional gel matrix based on different molecular recognition motifs [7,8] These recognition motifs interact by hydrogen bonding, metal chelation, π–π bonding, van der Waals forces or hydrophobic bonding resulting in dynamic fibrillar hydrogels [9]. Variations in the composition of low molecular weight gelators allow us to tune the mechanical, chemical and biological properties of the resulting hydrogels and offer the advantage to generate hydrogel libraries These hydrogels exhibit interesting features such as their low minimal gelation concentration and their reversible three-dimensional network formation, allowing them to sense and respond to their environment [8,9]
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