Journal
BIOMACROMOLECULES
Volume 17, Issue 8, Pages 2619-2625Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acs.biomac.6b00621
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Funding
- NIH ARRA [DE 018360-02]
- Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute
- China Scholarship Council (CSC)
- Siebel Scholars Foundation
- Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Office of the U.S. Department of Energy [DE-AC02-05CH11231]
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Tailorable hydrogels that are mechanically robust, injectable, and self-healable, are useful for many biomedical applications including tissue repair and drug delivery. Here we use biological and chemical engineering approaches to develop a novel in situ forming organic/ inorganic composite hydrogel with dynamic aldimine cross links using elastin-like polypeptides (ELP) and bioglass (BG). The resulting ELP/BG biocomposites exhibit tunable gelling behavior and mechanical characteristics in a composition and concentration dependent manner. We also demonstrate self-healing in the ELP/BG hydrogels by successfully reattaching severed pieces as well as through rheology. In addition, we show the strength of genetic engineering to easily customize ELP by fusing cell-stimulating RGD peptide motifs. We showed that the resulting composite materials are cytocompatible as they support the cellular growth and attachment. Our robust in situ forming ELP/BG composite hydrogels will be useful as injectable scaffolds for delivering cell and drug molecules to promote soft tissue regeneration in the future.
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