Hydrogels were the first biomaterials designed for clinical use. Their discovery and applications as soft contact lenses and implants served as a foundation for the expansion of biomedical polymers research into new directions: design of stimuli sensitive hydrogels that abruptly change their properties upon application of an external stimulus (pH, temperature, solvent, electrical field, biorecognition) and hydrogels as carriers for the delivery of drugs, peptides, and proteins. Conformational changes accompanying protein � ligand recognition have been used in the design of smart biomaterials. Enzyme-based hybrid hydrogels that employ substrate-enzyme (adenylate kinase � ATP) recognition to induce a conformational change with concomitant decrease of the hydrogel volume were recently designed. This provides a new paradigm for hybrid hydrogel design, where biorecognition induced nano-scale conformational changes translate into macroscale mechanical motion. Hybrid hydrogels containing peptide or oligonucleotide domains present a novel advance; such biomaterials may self-assemble from block or graft copolymers containing biorecognition segments. Two of the domains, coiled-coils and oligonucleotides, will be used as examples to demonstrate the developments in the design of smart hydrogels. The design principles employed for self-assembly of graft copolymers into hybrid hydrogels can be used for the design on novel paradigms in nanomedicines. The unique biorecognition of complementary peptides and complementary morpholino oligonucleotides at the cellular surface was able to control apoptosis of B-cells in vitro and produce long-term survivors in a Non-Hodgkin lymphoma model in vivo. The application potential of synthetic, protein-based, DNA-based, and hybrid hydrogels bodes well for the future of this class of biomaterials.

Hydrogels: From soft contact lenses and implants to self-assembled nanomaterials

247th National Meeting (2014)

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