Peptide-Based Physical Gels Endowed with Thixotropic Behaviour

Abstract

Thixotropy is one of the oldest documented rheological phenomenon in colloid science and may be defined as an increase of viscosity in a state of rest and a decrease of viscosity when submitted to a constant shearing stress. This behavior has been exploited in recent years to prepare injectable hydrogels for application in drug delivery systems. Thixotropic hydrogels may be profitably used in the field of regenerative medicine, which promotes tissue healing after injuries and diseases, as the molten hydrogel may be injected by syringe and then self-adapts in the space inside the injection site and recovers the solid form. We will focus our attention on the preparation, properties, and some applications of biocompatible thixotropic hydrogels.

Ultrashort Peptide Self-Assembly: Front-Runners to Transport Drug and Gene Cargos

“…The comparison between the two classes of collagen mimetic peptides having same composition but different domain arrangements showed that the larger nucleation domains resulted in rapid fiber formation and gelation while short nucleation domains left the peptide soluble for longer period (Sarkar et al, 2014). The thixotropic supramolecular hydrogels formed in response to external environmental stimuli have wide ranges of potential biological applications (Levin et al, 2014;Seow and Hauser, 2014;Loic, 2017;Zanna and Tomasini, 2017;Mondal et al, 2020). The stability of peptide-based hydrogels, specially to enzymatic degradation has been reviewed by Yadav et al (2020).…”

Glycosyl squaramides, a new class of supramolecular gelators

“…This property is particularly important for soft materials useful for biomedical applications. 25 Thermal analysis…”

Rational Biological Interface Engineering: Amyloidal Supramolecular Microstructure-Inspired Hydrogel

“…The thixotropy of peptide-based hydrogel, especially those formed by short peptides, originated from non-covalent interactions as the main driving force in their self-assembly process, containing hydrogen bonding, π–π stacking, electrostatic effects, and hydrophobic interactions, etc ( Yadav et al, 2020 ). These effects tend to be weak and vulnerable to shear stress and show dynamic changes accompanied by variation in shear force ( Zanna and Tomasini, 2017 ). Shear force is input in this hydrogel system as external energy, making the system no longer thermodynamically isolated, and distance-dependent intermolecular interactions deviate from the chemical equilibrium state, which ultimately leads to a state comparable to infinite dilution with no likelihood of rebinding.…”