Work

Enhancing Biocompatibility of D -Oligopeptide Hydrogels by Negative Charges

Year: 2012

Type: article

Abstract: Oligopeptide hydrogels are emerging as useful matrices for cell culture with commercial products on the market, but L-oligopeptides are labile to proteases. An obvious solution is to create D-oligopeptide hydrogels, which lack enzymatic recognition. However, D-oligopeptide matrices do not support cell growth as well as L-oligopeptide matrices. In addition to chiral interactions, many cellular activities are strongly governed by charge-charge interactions. In this work, the effects of chirality and charge on human mesenchymal stem cell (hMSC) behavior were studied using hydrogels assembled from oppositely charged oligopeptides. It was found that negative charges significantly improved hMSC viability and proliferation in D-oligopeptide gels but had little effect on their interactions with L-oligopeptide gels. This result points to the possibility of using charge and other factors to engineer biomaterials whose chirality is distinct from that of natural biomaterials, but whose performance is close to that of natural biomaterials.

Source: Biomacromolecules

DOI: 10.1021/bm301598g

Authors: Laura L. Hyland, Julianne D. Twomey, Savannah Vogel, Adam H. Hsieh, Y. Bruce Yu

Institutions: University of Maryland, College Park, University of Maryland, Baltimore

Language: English

Topic: Supramolecular Self-Assembly in Materials

Subfield: Biomaterials

Field: Materials Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering