State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiaotong University, 800 Dongchuan Road., 200240, Shanghai, China.
Adv Mater. 2017 Apr;29(16). doi: 10.1002/adma.201604062. Epub 2017 Jan 23.
Supramolecular hydrogels assembled from amino acids and peptide-derived hydrogelators have shown great potential as biomimetic three-dimensional (3D) extracellular matrices because of their merits over conventional polymeric hydrogels, such as non-covalent or physical interactions, controllable self-assembly, and biocompatibility. These merits enable hydrogels to be made not only by using external stimuli, but also under physiological conditions by rationally designing gelator structures, as well as in situ encapsulation of cells into hydrogels for 3D culture. This review will assess current progress in the preparation of amino acids and peptide-based hydrogels under various kinds of external stimuli, and in situ encapsulation of cells into the hydrogels, with a focus on understanding the associations between their structures, properties, and functions during cell culture, and the remaining challenges in this field. The amino acids and peptide-based hydrogelators with rationally designed structures have promising applications in the fields of regenerative medicine, tissue engineering, and pre-clinical evaluation.
由氨基酸和肽类水凝胶形成的超分子水凝胶因其优于传统聚合物水凝胶的优点，例如非共价或物理相互作用、可控的自组装和生物相容性，已显示出作为仿生三维 (3D) 细胞外基质的巨大潜力。这些优点不仅使水凝胶可以通过外部刺激来制备，而且可以通过合理设计凝胶剂结构以及在 3D 培养中将细胞原位包封到水凝胶中来制备。这篇综述将评估在各种外部刺激下制备基于氨基酸和肽的水凝胶的最新进展，以及将细胞原位包封到水凝胶中，重点是了解细胞培养过程中它们的结构、性能和功能之间的联系，以及该领域存在的剩余挑战。具有合理设计结构的氨基酸和肽类水凝胶有望在再生医学、组织工程和临床前评估等领域得到应用。
