A sandcastle worm-inspired strategy to functionalize wet hydrogels

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 12; no. 1; p. 6331
• Main Authors: Zhang, Donghui, Liu, Jingjing, Chen, Qi, Jiang, Weinan, Wang, Yibing, Xie, Jiayang, Ma, Kaiqian, Shi, Chao, Zhang, Haodong, Chen, Minzhang, Wan, Jianglin, Ma, Pengcheng, Zou, Jingcheng, Zhang, Wenjing, Zhou, Feng, Liu, Runhui
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 03-11-2021; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 13/1; 13/51; 14/19; 14/35; 14/63; 140/131; 140/146; 140/58; 147/3; 639/301/54/989; 639/301/54/990; 639/301/923/1027; 64/86; Adhesives; Animals; Antiinfectives and antibacterials; Biocompatible Materials - chemistry; Cell Adhesion; Chemical synthesis; Dihydroxyphenylalanine; Female; Functional groups; Gelation; Humanities and Social Sciences; Hydrogels; Hydrogels - chemistry; Hydrogels - pharmacology; Lysine; Mice; multidisciplinary; NIH 3T3 Cells; Polychaeta - metabolism; Polymerization; Polymers; Polymers - chemistry; Polymers - pharmacology; Rats; Rats, Sprague-Dawley; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Wound healing
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-26659-0

Hydrogels have been extensively used in many fields. Current synthesis of functional hydrogels requires incorporation of functional molecules either before or during gelation via the pre-organized reactive site along the polymer chains within hydrogels, which is tedious for polymer synthesis and not flexible for different types of hydrogels. Inspired by sandcastle worm, we develop a simple one-step strategy to functionalize wet hydrogels using molecules bearing an adhesive dibutylamine-DOPA-lysine-DOPA tripeptide. This tripeptide can be easily modified with various functional groups to initiate diverse types of polymerizations and provide functional polymers with a terminal adhesive tripeptide. Such functional molecules enable direct modification of wet hydrogels to acquire biological functions such as antimicrobial, cell adhesion and wound repair. The strategy has a tunable functionalization degree and a stable attachment of functional molecules, which provides a tool for direct and convenient modification of wet hydrogels to provide them with diverse functions and applications.
Functionalisation of hydrogels can be difficult to achieve and often requires modification of polymers before gelation. Here, the authors report on a sandcastle worm inspired adhesive tripeptide for the post gelation functionalisation of wet hydrogels, demonstrating the addition of different functionality.