The Development of Functional Peptide Scaffolds for Cell Culture

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Abstract

Peptides and peptide derivatives have shown great scope as biomaterials and for biomedicaltherapy application. It has been demonstrated that classes of these peptides can form fibrillar hydrogels making them a good candidate for ECM mimics. In particular, the ionic complementary peptides, composed of alternating hydrophobic and hydrophilic amino acidshave been reported as successful cell scaffolds. The simple structure of such ionic complementary peptides is generally seen to spontaneously self-assemble into β-sheet richfibrils in the presence of water. The highly aqueous environment, along with the inter meshing of fibres, results in an architecture akin to the natural ECM of the body, making peptide hydrogels highly suitable as cell culture scaffolds. The structure of such hydrogels, usually comprising 8-32 amino acids, has been widely reported as easily modifiable, thus, allowing for control of the final material properties.This study explores the potential use of a range of ionic-complementary peptides for the culture of primary bovine chondrocytes. Modifications and additions to peptide sequence, such as charge and amino acid substitution, were investigated. In all studies only 1 design parameter (sequence, charge etc.) was varied, to allow for better understanding of the effect of materials properties upon cell response.The encapsulation of primary bovine chondrocytes was undertaken, with the aim of providing a suitable cell scaffold capable of maintaining chondrocyte viability and function in vitro. Despite in vivo work being beyond the scope of this thesis, the properties of the hydrogel scaffold were designed with final aim of being suitable for use with matrix associated autologous chondrocyte implantation (MACI) in clinical therapy.

Keyword(s)

chondrocyte; hydrogel; peptide

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