Novel Peptide-Based Hydrogels

Kansas State University
posted on 03/08/2011

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Peptide-based biopolymers have become attractive for various biotechnology applications such as drug delivery, tissue engineering scaffolds, and other biotechnology related applications. Researchers at Kansas State University have discovered a peptide that possesses reversible liquid-hydrogel properties based on mechanical shear at room temperature. The peptide contains 19 amino acids with a molecular weight of about 1740 Da.

This hydrogel has several potential applications, including:

• Scaffolds for tissue engineering
• Drug delivery
• Drug and cell encapsulation

The main feature of this peptide is that it can form a hydrogel at low concentrations (0.1% or above) with ion (calcium or sodium) as a trigger at a pH ranging from 5.0 – 11. The hydrogel exhibits shear thinning properties, and becomes micro gels with Newtonian flow after shaking, and then regains its viscosity reforming the hydrogel upon decreasing the shear rate. This hydrogel uses water as a solvent and is temperature stable up to 90°C.

Potential advantages also include:

• No buffer is needed to form the hydrogel in a pH range of 5-11
• Very rapid recovery of the hydrogel after mechanical shearing
• The peptide can be prepared using several production techniques