In-situ Crosslinked Scaffolds of Elastin-like Polypeptide Block Copolymer for Tissue Repair

摘要

Hydrogels formed from elastin-like polypeptides (ELPs) and enzymatically crosslinked forms of ELP have been shown to support cartilage matrix synthesis in vitro, for both embedded primary chondro-cytes and adult, adipose tissue-derived stem cells. In a complementary approach, we recently developed a new method to chemically crosslink ELPs into hydrogels with hydroxymethylphosphines (HMPs). This method is attractive for in situ crosslinking of ELPs in tissue defects as it proceeds spontaneously in aqueous medium and generates only water and stable aminomethylphosphines as a by-product. These studies were carried out on an ELP that contained crosslinkable Lys residues that were distributed along the polypeptide chain.