Department of Chemistry, The University of British Columbia , 2036 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z1, Canada.
Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructure, Department of Physics, Nanjing University , Nanjing 210093, P. R. China.
Biomacromolecules. 2016 Sep 12;17(9):2812-9. doi: 10.1021/acs.biomac.6b00566. Epub 2016 Aug 17.
Constructing hydrogels from engineered proteins has attracted significant attention within the material sciences, owing to their myriad potential applications in biomedical engineering. Developing efficient methods to cross-link tailored protein building blocks into hydrogels with desirable mechanical, physical, and functional properties is of paramount importance. By making use of the recently developed SpyCatcher-SpyTag chemistry, we successfully engineered protein hydrogels on the basis of engineered tandem modular elastomeric proteins. Our resultant protein hydrogels are soft but stable, and show excellent biocompatibility. As the first step, we tested the use of these hydrogels as a drug carrier, as well as in encapsulating human lung fibroblast cells. Our results demonstrate the robustness of the SpyCatcher-SpyTag chemistry, even when the SpyTag (or SpyCatcher) is flanked by folded globular domains. These results demonstrate that SpyCatcher-SpyTag chemistry can be used to engineer protein hydrogels from tandem modular elastomeric proteins that can find applications in tissue engineering, in fundamental mechano-biological studies, and as a controlled drug release vehicle.
利用工程化蛋白构建水凝胶在材料科学领域引起了广泛关注，因为它们在生物医学工程中有广泛的潜在应用。开发有效的方法将定制的蛋白结构单元交联成具有理想机械、物理和功能特性的水凝胶至关重要。通过利用最近开发的 SpyCatcher-SpyTag 化学，我们成功地基于工程化串联模块化弹性蛋白构建了蛋白水凝胶。我们得到的蛋白水凝胶柔软但稳定，具有优异的生物相容性。作为第一步，我们测试了这些水凝胶作为药物载体以及包封人肺成纤维细胞的用途。我们的结果表明 SpyCatcher-SpyTag 化学的稳健性，即使 SpyTag（或 SpyCatcher）被折叠的球状结构域包围也是如此。这些结果表明 SpyCatcher-SpyTag 化学可用于构建源自串联模块化弹性蛋白的蛋白水凝胶，这些水凝胶可应用于组织工程、基础机械生物学研究以及作为控制药物释放的载体。
