Heparin-functionalized polymeric biomaterials in tissue engineering and drug delivery applications

Abstract

Heparin plays an important role in many biological processes, via its interaction with various proteins, and hydrogels and nanoparticles comprising heparin exhibit attractive properties such as anticoagulant activity, growth factor binding, as well as antiangiogenic and apoptotic effects, making them great candidates for emerging applications. Accordingly, this review summarizes recent efforts in the preparation of heparin-based hydrogels and formation of nanoparticles, as well as the characterization of their properties and applications. The challenges and future perspectives for heparin-based materials are also discussed. Prospects are promising for heparin-containing polymeric biomaterials in diverse applications ranging from cell carriers for promoting cell differentiation to nanoparticle therapeutics for cancer treatment.

Pharmacology of Heparin and Related Drugs

“…Much work in the past decade has been undertaken designing heparin-incorporating scaffold chemistries for specific functions, aimed at the replacement of missing tissue or the strengthening of debilitated tissues; this field was recently reviewed (Liang and Kiick, 2014). A few examples provide an idea of the possible therapeutic scope: they include induction of blood vessel formation by low concentrations of growth factors in nanostructures consisting of peptides and heparin (Rajangam et al, 2006), heparin crosslinked gel used as a slow-release matrix for OPG (McGonigle et al, 2008), and slow release of FGF-2 from a heparin-containing poly(caprolactine)-gelatin matrix (Kim 122 et al, 2010).…”

Stimuli-Responsive Hydrogels Based on Polyglycerol Crosslinked with Citric and Fatty Acids

“…Due to their swelling ability, hydrogels have been studied extensively for a variety of applications such as drug delivery [3][4][5][6], agricultural applications [7,8], removal of impurities in aqueous solutions [9,10], biosensors [11], and spectrophotometric determination of drugs [12]. In these applications, swelling capacity and thermal, mechanical, and stimuli-responsive properties are of most interest.…”

Sustained release of hepatocyte growth factor by cationic self-assembling peptide/heparin hybrid hydrogel improves β-cell survival and function through modulating inflammatory response

“…18 Functionalized SAPs with Hep-binding motif showed strong binding affinity to Hep. 20 Since Hep is highly negatively charged in physiological saline solution, it will stably bind to positively charged SAP through electrostatic interaction.…”

“…Hep also protected GFs from thermal denaturation and proteinase degradation, and it has been widely used to immobilize GFs on biomaterials. 18 Therefore, incorporation of Hep in SAP gels might be a promising method to stabilize and slow release of GFs for islet transplantation.…”