Ramachandran Sivakumar, Yu Yihua Bruce
Department of Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA.
BioDrugs. 2006;20(5):263-9. doi: 10.2165/00063030-200620050-00001.
Molecular self-assembly has paved the way to create novel, supramolecular, functional biomaterials. Peptide-based biomaterials are gaining interest as a result of their programmability, biodegradability, and bioresorbability. Further, unlike polymeric materials, peptides can be made monodisperse with precise control over sequence, chain length, and stereochemistry. Peptide-based viscoelastic matrices have been designed and characterized for various biomedical applications, such as tissue engineering scaffolds or drug delivery vehicles. The 'holy grail' in designing an ideal tissue engineering scaffold lies in mimicking the cues of the tissue's natural extracellular matrix (ECM). Some of the key elements of ECM that are incorporated into these peptide scaffolds include cell-adhesive and protease-sensitive sequences for enhanced cell-cell and cell-biomaterial interactions. Peptide-based viscoelastic matrices can also be engineered with drug carrying protease-sensitive sequences for controlled and site-specific drug delivery. Molecular-level engineering of simple oligopeptide modules can be used to control the position and density of the bio-mimetic functionalities in the supramolecular structures, which demonstrates the power of the 'bottom-up' approach in self-assembly.
分子自组装为新型超分子功能生物材料的创造铺平了道路。基于肽的生物材料因其可编程性、可生物降解性和生物可吸收性而受到关注。此外，与聚合材料不同，肽可以通过对序列、链长和立体化学的精确控制而制成单分散的。基于肽的粘弹性基质已被设计并用于各种生物医学应用，如组织工程支架或药物递送载体。设计理想组织工程支架的“圣杯”在于模仿组织天然细胞外基质（ECM）的线索。这些肽支架中纳入的ECM的一些关键要素包括用于增强细胞间和细胞与生物材料相互作用的细胞粘附和蛋白酶敏感序列。基于肽的粘弹性基质也可以设计带有载药蛋白酶敏感序列，用于可控和位点特异性药物递送。简单寡肽模块的分子水平工程可用于控制超分子结构中仿生功能的位置和密度，这展示了“自下而上”自组装方法的强大之处。
