Design and synthesis of self-assembled peptide based on three dimensional nano hydrogels for soft tissue engineering

Injectable hydrogels are among the most applicable materials in soft tissue engineering. Synthetic biology is been applied to design and produce new hydrogel biomaterials with suitable mechanical properties and in situ gel formation capability in in vivo conditions. Amphiphiles peptides are one mostly used group of these biomaterials. Biological, chemical and mechanical optimizations are necessary for a good soft tissue ECM simulation based on hydrogels. The aim of this work is to construct a novel three-dimensional nano-composite hydrogels with different mechanical and biological properties. The Spectroscopic and microscopic methods consisting of CD, FTIR, TEM, and AFM are used for optimization of the co-assembly process and to assess the probable effects of bio-epitope segments in final properties of co-assembled hydrogels. Our results show that not only the amount of each peptide but also hydrophobicity and the volume of bio-epitope segments affect the strength and geometry of hydrogen bonds, inter-febrile interactions, and final stability of hydrogels. These data suggest that it is possible to produce different hydrogels without major alterations in the main parts of peptide amphiphiles just by designing right combination of mixed peptide amphiphiles and their bio-derivatives.