Canadian Biomaterials Society
Société Canadienne des Biomatériaux

Multipurpose On-the-Spot Peptide-Based Hydrogels for Skin, Cornea and Heart Repair

Journal: Advanced Functional Materials
Authors: German Andres Mercado - Alex Ross, Xixi Guo, German A. Mercado Salazar, Sergio David Garcia Schejtman, Jinane El-Hage, Maxime Comtois-Bona, Aidan Macadam, Irene Guzman-Soto, Hiroki Takaya, Kevin Hu, Bryan Liu, Ryan Tu, Bilal Siddiqi, Erica Anderson, Marcelo Muñoz, Patricio Briones-Rebolledo, Tianqin Ning, May Griffith, Benjamin Rotsein, Horacio Poblete, Jianyu Li, Marc Ruel, Erik J. Suuronen, Emilio I. Alarcon

Bioinspired synthetic materials can be designed as reliable, cost-effective, and fully controlled alternatives to natural biomaterials for treating damaged tissues and organs. However, several hurdles need to be overcome for clinical translation, particularly for biomaterials gelled in situ. These include the potential toxicity of chemical crosslinkers used in the materials' assembly or breakdown products they generate and the challenges of fine-tuning the mechanical properties of the materials. Here, a minimalistic, adhesive soft material is developed by screening hundreds of potential formulations of self-assembling, custom-designed collagen-like peptide sequences for the in situ formation of tissue-bonding 3D hydrogels. Nine promising formulations for tissue repair are identified using a low-volume and rapid combinatory screening approach. It is shown that simply varying the ratio of the two key components promotes adhesion and fine-tunes the material's mechanical properties. The materials' skin and heart repair capabilities are assessed in vitro and clinically relevant animal models. The materials are also tested for corneal applications using ex vivo pig cornea models complemented by in vitro cell compatibility assays.

Year: 2024