In order to study the individual effects of substrate stiffness and permeability on cellular behavior, we produced a library of hydrogels composed of rigid and flexible synthetic polypeptide macromers. These macromers are grafted efficiently with a 'click' cycloaddition reaction between the alkyne moieties along the polymer backbone and azide-terminated ethylene glycol groups. The polypeptide secondary structure is dependent upon monomer chirality: polyglutamate containing only L-glutamate monomers exhibits a rigid a-helix structure whereas polyglutamate composed of a mixture of D- and L-glutamate adopts a flexible random coil conformation. These polypeptides form hydrogels upon reaction with a hetero-bifunctional cross-linker and thiol-terminated PEG. Preliminary mechanical, swelling, and transport data demonstrate that polypeptide rigidity is a useful parameter for tuning hydrogel stiffness independently from permeability and other gel properties. We are currently investigating the relationships between polypeptide structure and composition, as well as hydrogel formulation, on the physicochemical properties of the resulting materials.

Click-grafted polypeptide macromers: Components of a hydrogel toolkit for modeling cell-matrix interactions

244th National Meeting (2012)

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