Characterization of elastic, thermo-responsive, self-healable supramolecular hydrogel made of self-assembly peptides and guar gum

Self-assembling peptides (SAPs) show great promise in regenerative medicine and beyond. Yet, their low mechanical rigidity and limited processability hinder many of their potential applications. In this work we describe the reinforcement of a synthetic biomimetic and β-sheet rich FAQRVPP-LDLK12 SAP by its integration with a naturally occurring polysaccharide - guar gum - to produce a shapeable and thermo-responsive composite hydrogel. Extensive characterization was performed via rheological measurements, CD spectroscopy, FT-IR spectroscopy, and AFM analyses. Composite hydrogels show preserved nanostructured morphology and cross-β structure aggregation typical of SAPs, improved mechanical properties (peaking at 1:1 weight ratio with G′~60 kPa) with self-healing and stress-relaxation propensities: they also exhibit reversible repeatable gel-sol transitions in response to thermal stimuli. Thanks to the dynamic properties of guar gum, stretchability was extended far beyond 5% strain of standard SAPs and processability allowed for the production of knotted threads and long (>10 cm) flexible sheets. Composite hydrogels of guar gum and SAPs may be added to the growing library of biomimetic SAP hydrogels used in 3D-printing, wound healing, suturing and beyond. Keywords: Self-assembling peptides, Guar gum, Supramolecular hydrogels, Self-healing, Thermal responsive, Nanofiber

Modeling of supramolecular biopolymers: Leading the <i>in silico</i> revolution of tissue engineering and nanomedicine

Abstract The field of tissue engineering is poised to be positively influenced by the advent of supramolecular biopolymers, because of their promising tailorability coming from the bottom-up approach used for their development, absence of toxic byproducts from their gelation reaction and intrinsic better mimicry of extracellular matrix nanotopography and mechanical properties. However, a deep understanding of the phenomena ruling their properties at the meso- and macroscales is still missing. In silico approaches are increasingly helping to shine a light on questions still of out of reach for almost all empirical methods. In this review, we will present the most significant and updated efforts on molecular modeling of SBP properties, and their interactions with the living counterparts, at all scales. In detail, the currently available molecular mechanic approaches will be discussed, paying attention to the pros and cons related to their representability and transferability. We will also give detailed insights for choosing different biomolecular modeling strategies at various scales. This is a systematic overview of tools and approaches yielding to advances at atomistic, molecular, and supramolecular levels, with a holistic perspective demonstrating the urgent need for theories and models connecting biomaterial design and their biological effect in vivo

Designer Self-Assembling Peptide Nanofiber Scaffolds for Adult Mouse Neural Stem Cell 3-Dimensional Cultures

Biomedical researchers have become increasingly aware of the limitations of conventional 2-dimensional tissue cell culture systems, including coated Petri dishes, multi-well plates and slides, to fully address many critical issues in cell biology, cancer biology and neurobiology, such as the 3-D microenvironment, 3-D gradient diffusion, 3-D cell migration and 3-D cell-cell contact interactions. In order to fully understand how cells behave in the 3-D body, it is important to develop a well-controlled 3-D cell culture system where every single ingredient is known. Here we report the development of a 3-D cell culture system using a designer peptide nanofiber scaffold with mouse adult neural stem cells. We attached several functional motifs, including cell adhesion, differentiation and bone marrow homing motifs, to a self-assembling peptide RADA16 (Ac-RADARADARADARADA-COHN2). These functionalized peptides undergo self-assembly into a nanofiber structure similar to Matrigel. During cell culture, the cells were fully embedded in the 3-D environment of the scaffold. Two of the peptide scaffolds containing bone marrow homing motifs significantly enhanced the neural cell survival without extra soluble growth and neurotrophic factors to the routine cell culture media. In these designer scaffolds, the cell populations with β-Tubulin(+), GFAP(+) and Nestin(+) markers are similar to those found in cell populations cultured on Matrigel. The gene expression profiling array experiments showed selective gene expression, possibly involved in neural stem cell adhesion and differentiation. Because the synthetic peptides are intrinsically pure and a number of desired function cellular motifs are easy to incorporate, these designer peptide nanofiber scaffolds provide a promising controlled 3-D culture system for diverse tissue cells, and are useful as well for general molecular and cell biology

3D culture of adult mouse neural stem cells within functionalized self-assembling peptide scaffolds

Three-dimensional (3D) in vitro models of cell culture aim to fill the gap between the standard two-dimensional cell studies and the in vivo environment. Especially for neural tissue regeneration approaches where there is little regenerative capacity, these models are important for mimicking the extracellular matrix in providing support, allowing the natural flow of oxygen, nutrients, and growth factors, and possibly favoring neural cell regrowth. We have previously demonstrated that a new self-assembling nanostructured biomaterial, based on matrigel, was able to support adult neural stem cell (NSC) culture. In this study, we developed a new 3D cell culture system that takes advantage of the nano- and microfiber assembling process, under physiologic conditions, of these biomaterials. The assembled scaffold forms an intricate and biologically active matrix that displays specifically designed functional motifs: RGD (Arg-Gly-Asp), BMHP1 (bone marrow homing peptide 1), and BMHP2, for the culture of adult NSCs. These scaffolds were prepared at different concentrations, and microscopic examination of the cell-embedded scaffolds showed that NSCs are viable and they proliferate and differentiate within the nanostructured environment of the scaffold. Such a model has the potential to be tailored to develop ad hoc designed peptides for specific cell lines

Glycine-Spacers Influence Functional Motifs Exposure and Self-Assembling Propensity of Functionalized Substrates Tailored for Neural Stem Cell Cultures

The understanding of phenomena involved in the self-assembling of bio-inspired biomaterials acting as three-dimensional scaffolds for regenerative medicine applications is a necessary step to develop effective therapies in neural tissue engineering. We investigated the self-assembled nanostructures of functionalized peptides featuring four, two or no glycine-spacers between the self-assembly sequence RADA16-I and the functional biological motif PFSSTKT. The effectiveness of their biological functionalization was assessed via in vitro experiments with neural stem cells (NSCs) and their molecular assembly was elucidated via atomic force microscopy, Raman and Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy. We demonstrated that glycine-spacers play a crucial role in the scaffold stability and in the exposure of the functional motifs. In particular, a glycine-spacer of four residues leads to a more stable nanostructure and to an improved exposure of the functional motif. Accordingly, the longer spacer of glycines, the more effective is the functional motif in both eliciting NSCs adhesion, improving their viability and increasing their differentiation. Therefore, optimized designing strategies of functionalized biomaterials may open, in the near future, new therapies in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine

Myelin Activates FAK/Akt/NF-κB Pathways and Provokes CR3-Dependent Inflammatory Response in Murine System

Inflammatory response following central nervous system (CNS) injury contributes to progressive neuropathology and reduction in functional recovery. Axons are sensitive to mechanical injury and toxic inflammatory mediators, which may lead to demyelination. Although it is well documented that degenerated myelin triggers undesirable inflammatory responses in autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS) and its animal model, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), there has been very little study of the direct inflammatory consequences of damaged myelin in spinal cord injury (SCI), i.e., there is no direct evidence to show that myelin debris from injured spinal cord can trigger undesirable inflammation in vitro and in vivo. Our data showed that myelin can initiate inflammatory responses in vivo, which is complement receptor 3 (CR3)-dependent via stimulating macrophages to express pro-inflammatory molecules and down-regulates expression of anti-inflammatory cytokines. Mechanism study revealed that myelin-increased cytokine expression is through activation of FAK/PI3K/Akt/NF-κB signaling pathways and CR3 contributes to myelin-induced PI3K/Akt/NF-κB activation and cytokine production. The myelin induced inflammatory response is myelin specific as sphingomyelin (the major lipid of myelin) and myelin basic protein (MBP, one of the major proteins of myelin) are not able to activate NF-κB signaling pathway. In conclusion, our results demonstrate a crucial role of myelin as an endogenous inflammatory stimulus that induces pro-inflammatory responses and suggest that blocking myelin-CR3 interaction and enhancing myelin debris clearance may be effective interventions for treating SCI

Biological Designer Self-Assembling Peptide Nanofiber Scaffolds Significantly Enhance Osteoblast Proliferation, Differentiation and 3-D Migration

A class of self-assembling peptide nanofiber scaffolds has been shown to be an excellent biological material for 3-dimension cell culture and stimulating cell migration into the scaffold, as well as for repairing tissue defects in animals. We report here the development of several peptide nanofiber scaffolds designed specifically for osteoblasts. We designed one of the pure self-assembling peptide scaffolds RADA16-I through direct coupling to short biologically active motifs. The motifs included osteogenic growth peptide ALK (ALKRQGRTLYGF) bone-cell secreted-signal peptide, osteopontin cell adhesion motif DGR (DGRGDSVAYG) and 2-unit RGD binding sequence PGR (PRGDSGYRGDS). We made the new peptide scaffolds by mixing the pure RAD16 and designer-peptide solutions, and we examined the molecular integration of the mixed nanofiber scaffolds using AFM. Compared to pure RAD16 scaffold, we found that these designer peptide scaffolds significantly promoted mouse pre-osteoblast MC3T3-E1 cell proliferation. Moreover, alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity and osteocalcin secretion, which are early and late markers for osteoblastic differentiation, were also significantly increased. We demonstrated that the designer, self-assembling peptide scaffolds promoted the proliferation and osteogenic differentiation of MC3T3-E1. Under the identical culture medium condition, confocal images unequivocally demonstrated that the designer PRG peptide scaffold stimulated cell migration into the 3-D scaffold. Our results suggest that these designer peptide scaffolds may be very useful for promoting bone tissue regeneration

Engineered Heart Tissue: A Novel Tool to Study the Ischemic Changes of the Heart In Vitro

Background: Understanding the basic mechanisms and prevention of any disease pattern lies mainly on development of a successful experimental model. Recently, engineered heart tissue (EHT) has been demonstrated to be a useful tool in experimental transplantation. Here, we demonstrate a novel function for the spontaneously contracting EHT as an experimental model in studying the acute ischemia-induced changes in vitro. Methodology/Principal Findings: EHT was constructed by mixing cardiomyocytes isolated from the neonatal rats and cultured in a ring-shaped scaffold for five days. This was followed by mechanical stretching of the EHT for another one week under incubation. Fully developed EHT was subjected to hypoxia with 1 % O2 for 6 hours after treating them with cell protective agents such as cyclosporine A (CsA) and acetylcholine (ACh). During culture, EHT started to show spontaneous contractions that became more synchronous following mechanical stretching. This was confirmed by the increased expression of gap junctional protein connexin 43 and improved action potential recordings using an optical mapping system after mechanical stretching. When subjected to hypoxia, EHT demonstrated conduction defects, dephosphorylation of connexin-43, and down-regulation of cell survival proteins identical to the adult heart. These effects were inhibited by treating the EHT with cell protective agents. Conclusions/Significance: Under hypoxic conditions, the EHT responds similarly to the adult myocardium, thus making EHT a promising material for the study of cardiac functions in vitro

Aptamer-based multiplexed proteomic technology for biomarker discovery

Interrogation of the human proteome in a highly multiplexed and efficient manner remains a coveted and challenging goal in biology. We present a new aptamer-based proteomic technology for biomarker discovery capable of simultaneously measuring thousands of proteins from small sample volumes (15 [mu]L of serum or plasma). Our current assay allows us to measure ~800 proteins with very low limits of detection (1 pM average), 7 logs of overall dynamic range, and 5% average coefficient of variation. This technology is enabled by a new generation of aptamers that contain chemically modified nucleotides, which greatly expand the physicochemical diversity of the large randomized nucleic acid libraries from which the aptamers are selected. Proteins in complex matrices such as plasma are measured with a process that transforms a signature of protein concentrations into a corresponding DNA aptamer concentration signature, which is then quantified with a DNA microarray. In essence, our assay takes advantage of the dual nature of aptamers as both folded binding entities with defined shapes and unique sequences recognizable by specific hybridization probes. To demonstrate the utility of our proteomics biomarker discovery technology, we applied it to a clinical study of chronic kidney disease (CKD). We identified two well known CKD biomarkers as well as an additional 58 potential CKD biomarkers. These results demonstrate the potential utility of our technology to discover unique protein signatures characteristic of various disease states. More generally, we describe a versatile and powerful tool that allows large-scale comparison of proteome profiles among discrete populations. This unbiased and highly multiplexed search engine will enable the discovery of novel biomarkers in a manner that is unencumbered by our incomplete knowledge of biology, thereby helping to advance the next generation of evidence-based medicine