Department of Biomedical Engineering , The Chinese University of Hong Kong , Shatin , Hong Kong.
Empa , Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Laboratory for Biomimetic Membranes and Textiles, Lerchenfeldstrasse 5 , CH-9014 St. Gallen , Switzerland.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2019 May 8;11(18):16328-16335. doi: 10.1021/acsami.9b03029. Epub 2019 Apr 23.
Resembling soft tissues, stretchable hydrogels are promising biomaterials for many biomedical applications due to their excellent mechanical robustness. However, conventional stretchable hydrogels with a synthetic polymer matrix are usually bioinert. The lack of cell and tissue adhesiveness of such hydrogels limits their applications. An easy but reliable postgelation functionalization method is desirable. Herein, we report the fabrication of stretchable supramolecular hydrogels cross-linked by multivalent host-guest interactions. Such hydrogels containing thiourea ( TU) functionalities can be bioactivated with a catechol-modified peptide (Cat-RGD) via thiourea-catechol ( TU-Cat) coupling reaction. This postgelation bioactivation of the otherwise bioinert hydrogels not only conjugates bioactive ligands for cell attachment but also introduces and preserves the catechol structures for tissue adhesion. This straightforward fabrication and one-stone-two-bird bioactivation of the stretchable hydrogels may find broad applications in developing advanced soft biomaterials for tissue repair, wound dressing, and lesion sealing.
类似于软组织，由于其优异的机械强度，可拉伸水凝胶是许多生物医学应用的有前途的生物材料。然而，具有合成聚合物基质的传统可拉伸水凝胶通常是生物惰性的。这些水凝胶缺乏细胞和组织粘附性，限制了它们的应用。需要一种简单但可靠的凝胶后功能化方法。在此，我们报告了由多价主体-客体相互作用交联的可拉伸超分子水凝胶的制造。含有硫脲 (TU) 官能团的此类水凝胶可以通过硫脲-儿茶酚 (TU-Cat) 偶联反应用儿茶酚修饰的肽 (Cat-RGD) 进行生物激活。这种对原本生物惰性水凝胶的凝胶后生物激活不仅将生物活性配体缀合用于细胞附着，而且还引入和保留儿茶酚结构用于组织粘附。这种简单的可拉伸水凝胶的制造和一石二鸟的生物激活方法可能会在开发用于组织修复、伤口敷料和病变密封的先进软生物材料方面得到广泛应用。
