Simple Complexity: Incorporating Bioinspired Delivery Machinery within Self-Assembled Peptide Biogels

Bioinspired self-assembly is a bottom-up strategy enabling biologically sophisticated nanostructured biogels that can mimic natural tissue. Self-assembling peptides (SAPs), carefully designed, form signal-rich supramolecular nanostructures that intertwine to form a hydrogel material that can be used for a range of cell and tissue engineering scaffolds. Using the tools of nature, they are a versatile framework for the supply and presentation of important biological factors. Recent developments have shown promise for many applications such as therapeutic gene, drug and cell delivery and yet are stable enough for large-scale tissue engineering. This is due to their excellent programmability-features can be incorporated for innate biocompatibility, biodegradability, synthetic feasibility, biological functionality and responsiveness to external stimuli. SAPs can be used independently or combined with other (macro)molecules to recapitulate surprisingly complex biological functions in a simple framework. It is easy to accomplish localized delivery, since they can be injected and can deliver targeted and sustained effects. In this review, we discuss the categories of SAPs, applications for gene and drug delivery, and their inherent design challenges. We highlight selected applications from the literature and make suggestions to advance the field with SAPs as a simple, yet smart delivery platform for emerging BioMedTech applications.

Automated summary

Bioinspired self-assembly is a bottom-up strategy that can create nanostructured biogels with biological sophistication, capable of mimicking natural tissue. These self-assembling peptides (SAPs) form supramolecular nanostructures that intertwine to create hydrogel materials, which can serve as versatile frameworks for cell and tissue engineering scaffolds. SAPs are programmable and can be designed to possess innate biocompatibility, biodegradability, synthetic feasibility, biological functionality, and responsiveness to external stimuli. They can be used independently or in combination with other molecules to recreate complex biological functions in a simplified framework.