Supramolecular hydrogels inspired by collagen for tissue engineering

Abstract

Supramolecular hydrogels are promising biomaterials for cell culture in 2-D and 3-D environments. Inspired by the chemical structure of collagen, which bears the repeating tripeptide of glycine-Xaa-4R-hydroxyproline (GXO; Xaa is any one of the natural amino acids), we designed and synthesized a small library of supramolecular hydrogelators (a total of 6). We found that four of the hydrogels were suitable for NIH 3T3 cell culture in the 2-D environments. Gel 2, the best hydrogel, has properties that are similar to those of collagen for 3T3 cell culture. These findings not only provide more supramolecular hydrogel candidates for tissue engineering, but also offer a new strategy for designing biomaterials that mimic nature.

A Supramolecular Hydrogel Inspired by Elastin

“…As shown in Figure 3B, solution of gel I exhibited two distinctive peaks at 332 and 339 nm, which corresponded to the 1 L b transition of naphthalene. 35 These peaks showed red shifts in gel I to 335 and 343 nm, respectively. The three small peaks centered at 432, 458 and 483 nm were from the oligomer of naphthalene groups, which suggested that most of naphthalene groups on 1 were separated by other groups in the self-assembled stage.…”

“…[34][35][36][37][38] We recently found that a tetra-peptide derivative of Nap-GFFpY-OMe (Nap represented naphthalene acetic acid, G represented glycine, F represented phenylalanine, pY represented phosphorylated tyrosine, and OMe represented methyl ester) could form hydrogels at a minimum gelation concentration of 0.01 wt% after enzymatic conversion. 34 This was the most efficient gelator reported up to now.…”

“…For examples, inspired by collagen, our group had developed several hydrogelators with similar structure of Nap-GFFYGGXO (O represented hydroxyproline and X represented any amino acids) and they were suitable for NIH 3T3 culture in 2D environments. 35 In this study, we opted to mimick another biomacromolecule of elastin to develop novel supramolecular hydrogels. Elastin is a protein in connective tissue that is elastic and helps many tissues in the body to remain their shape.…”

Supramolecular Hydrogels Made of Basic Biological Building Blocks

“…The authors also suggested that the hydrogel of 60 is the best hydrogel having properties that are similar to those of collagen for 3T3 cell culture. [111] Using the similar approach to generate a supramolecular hydrogelator that has a longer collagen mimic sequence, they demonstrated that its corresponding supramolecular hydrogel supported the differentiation of murine ES cells. [112] These findings illustrate the effectiveness of aromatic-aromatic interactions for generating supramolecular hydrogel scaffolds that mimic nature for tissue engineering.…”

Orthogonal Enzymatic Reactions to Control Supramolecular Hydrogelations

“…As one of recently most investigated areas of materials research, supramolecular hydrogels has been developed into promising biomaterials for drug delivery, [1][2][3][4][5][6] tissue engineering, [7][8][9][10][11][12] etc. due to their easily obtained biocompatibility and biodegradability that resulted from non-covalent aggregation and self-assembly of the hydrogelators.…”