State Key Laboratory of Bioreactor Engineering, Key Laboratory for Ultrafine Materials of Ministry of Education, Research Center for Biomedical Materials of Ministry of Education, School of Materials Science and Engineering , East China University of Science and Technology , Shanghai 200237 , China.
MOE Key Laboratory of Macromolecular Synthesis and Functionalization, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering , Zhejiang University , Hangzhou 310027 , China.
J Am Chem Soc. 2019 Oct 23;141(42):16772-16780. doi: 10.1021/jacs.9b07105. Epub 2019 Oct 1.
Cell adhesive and other functional peptides (such as RGD, KRSR, YIGSR, VAPG, and BMP-2 peptides) are extensively studied and utilized in tissue engineering scaffolds and biomedical devices to modulate cell functions. Though PEG is frequently used as the antifouling layer, it is unclear how it affects the performance of functional peptides. By analyzing the impact of PEG at short (OEG4), medium (OEG8), and long chain length (PEG2K), we reveal that PEG chain length is critical and a medium-length PEG enables functional peptides to display their optimal and genuine functions in cell adhesion, migration, and differentiation by providing excellent antifouling to minimize background noise of unwanted cell adhesion and high enough surface density of functional peptides. Our result provides new avenues for maximizing the genuine functions of peptides. This study also provides a solution to prevent the heterogeneous and even divergent results caused by inappropriate choice of antifouling PEG and provides a general guidance in identifying new functional peptides.
细胞黏附肽和其他功能肽（如 RGD、KRSR、YIGSR、VAPG 和 BMP-2 肽）在组织工程支架和生物医学设备中被广泛研究和应用，以调节细胞功能。尽管 PEG 经常被用作抗污层，但它如何影响功能肽的性能尚不清楚。通过分析短链（OEG4）、中链（OEG8）和长链（PEG2K）PEG 的影响，我们揭示了 PEG 链长的关键性，并且中链长度的 PEG 能够通过提供出色的抗污性来最小化非期望细胞黏附的背景噪声，并使功能肽具有足够高的表面密度，从而使功能肽发挥最佳和真实的细胞黏附、迁移和分化功能。我们的研究结果为最大限度地发挥肽的真实功能提供了新的途径。这项研究还为防止因选择不当的抗污 PEG 而导致的异质甚至发散结果提供了一种解决方案，并为识别新的功能肽提供了一般性指导。
