No abstract

Underwater adhesion is crucial to many marine life forms living a sedentary lifestyle. Amongst them, mussel adhesion has been mostly studied, which inspires numerous investigations of 3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (DOPA)-based organic adhesives. In contrast, reef-building oysters represent another important "inorganic" strategy of marine molluscs for adhesion by generating biomineralized organic-inorganic adhesives, which is still rarely studied and no synthetic analogues have ever been reported so far. Here, a novel type of oyster-inspired organic-inorganic adhesive based on a biomineralized polyelectrolyte hydrogel is reported, which consists of polyacrylic acid physically cross-linked by very small amorphous calcium carbonate nanoparticles (<3 nm). The mineral-enhanced polyelectrolyte hydrogel adhesive is shown to be injectable, reusable, and optically clear upon curing in air. Moreover, comparable adhesion performance to DOPA-based adhesives is found for the hydrogel adhesive in both dry and wet conditions, which can even be further enhanced by introducing a small amount of second large cross-linker such as negatively charged nanoparticles. The present mineral hydrogel represents a new type of bio-inspired organic-inorganic adhesive that may find a variety of potential applications in adhesive chemistry.

The electropherogram of native heparin shows a broad distribution of mobilities μ, which truncates abruptly at a notably high μ = 4.7 × 10(-4) cm(2) V(-1) s(-1). This highly skewed mobility distribution is also found for the 20-saccharide chain, which shows from mass spectrometry a more uniform (symmetrical) with respect to sulfation level. Since a partially degraded heparin exhibits oligomer peaks with μ> 5 × 10(-4) cm(2) V(-1) s(-1) (appearing to escape the limitation of the mobility value for native heparin), we examined the electrophoretic behavior of chain-length monodisperse heparin oligomers. Their mobilities varied inversely with the logarithm of the contour length, L, for L from 3 to 10 nm and reached an asymptotic limit for L > 20 nm. The generality of this effect was indicated by similar behavior for oligomers of poly(styrene sulfonate). A recent theory of polyelectrolyte end effects (Manning, G. S. Macromolecules2008, 41, 6217-6227), in which chain termini exhibit reduced counterion condensation was found to quantitatively account for these results. A qualitative explanation for the anomalously high value of μ of native heparin, 10-20% higher than those seen for synthetic polyelectrolytes of higher linear charge density, is suggested on the basis of similar junction effects (Manning, G. S. Macromolecules2008, 41, 6217-6227), which reduce counterion condensation at the interfaces of regions of high and low sulfation. We suggest that these effects should be considered in models for the biofunctionality of the regulated high and low sulfation (NS/NA) domains of heparan sulfate.

The interactions between fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) and their receptors (FGFRs) are facilitated by heparan sulfate (HS) and heparin (Hp), highly sulfated biological polyelectrolytes. The molecular basis of FGF interactions with these polyelectrolytes is highly complex due to the structural heterogeneity of HS/Hp, and many details still remain elusive, especially the significance of charge density and minimal chain length of HS/Hp in growth factor recognition and multimerization. In this work, we use electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI MS) to investigate the association of relatively homogeneous oligoheparins (octamer, dp8, and decamer, dp10) with acidic fibroblast growth factor (FGF-1). This growth factor forms 1:1, 2:1 and 3:1 protein/heparinoid complexes with both dp8 and dp10, and the fraction of bound protein is highly dependent on protein/heparinoid molar ratio. Multimeric complexes are preferentially formed on the highly sulfated Hp oligomers. Although a variety of oligomers appear to be binding competent, there is a strong correlation between the affinity and the overall level of sulfation (the highest charge-density polyanions binding FGF most strongly via multivalent interactions). These results show that the interactions between FGF-1 and Hp oligomers are primarily directed by electrostatics, and also demonstrate the power of ESI MS as a tool to study multiple binding equilibria between proteins and structurally heterogeneous polyanions.

Polyelectrolyte hydrogels play an important role in tissue engineering and can be produced from natural polymers, such as the glycosaminoglycan hyaluronan. In order to control charge density and mechanical properties of hyaluronan-based hydrogels, we developed cross-linkers with a neutral or positively charged triazole core with different lengths of spacer arms and two terminal maleimide groups. These cross-linkers react with thiolated hyaluronan in a fast, stoichiometric thio-Michael addition. Introducing a positive charge on the core of the cross-linker enabled us to compare hydrogels with the same interconnectivity, but a different charge density. Positively charged cross-linkers form stiffer hydrogels relatively independent of the size of the cross-linker, whereas neutral cross-linkers only form stable hydrogels at small spacer lengths. These novel cross-linkers provide a platform to tune the hydrogel network charge and thus the mechanical properties of the network. In addition, they might offer a wide range of applications especially in bioprinting for precise design of hydrogels.