Department of Chemistry, Syracuse University, 111 College Place, Syracuse, New York 13244, United States.
Biomedical & Chemical Engineering, Syracuse University, 318 Bowne Hall, Syracuse, New York 13244, United States.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2020 Apr 8;12(14):17091-17099. doi: 10.1021/acsami.0c01154. Epub 2020 Mar 26.
Silver compounds have been used extensively for wound healing because of their antimicrobial properties, but high concentrations of silver are toxic to mammalian cells. We designed a peptide that binds silver and releases only small amounts of this ion over time, therefore overcoming the problem of silver toxicity. Silver binding was achieved through incorporation of an unnatural amino acid, 3'-pyridyl alanine (3'-PyA), into the peptide sequence. Upon the addition of silver ions, the peptide adopts a beta-sheet secondary structure and self-assembles into a strong hydrogel as characterized by rheology, circular dichroism, and transmission electron microscopy. We show that the resulting hydrogel kills and but is not toxic to fibroblasts and could be used for wound healing. The amount of Ag(I) released by hydrogels into the solution is less than 4% and this low amount of Ag(I) does not change in the pH range 6-8. These studies provide an initial indication for use of the designed hydrogel as injectable, antimicrobial wound dressing.
银化合物因其具有抗菌特性而被广泛用于伤口愈合，但高浓度的银对哺乳动物细胞有毒。我们设计了一种肽，它可以与银结合，并随着时间的推移仅释放少量这种离子，从而克服了银毒性的问题。通过将非天然氨基酸 3'-吡啶基丙氨酸（3'-PyA）掺入肽序列中，实现了银的结合。加入银离子后，肽采用β-折叠二级结构，并自组装成强水凝胶，其特征可通过流变学、圆二色性和透射电子显微镜来表征。我们表明，所得水凝胶可杀死 和 ，但对成纤维细胞无毒，可用于伤口愈合。水凝胶向溶液中释放的 Ag(I) 量小于 4%，并且在 pH 值为 6-8 的范围内，这种低量的 Ag(I) 不会改变。这些研究初步表明，所设计的水凝胶可用作可注射的抗菌伤口敷料。
