Polymeric materials that can recapitulate the release pattern of growth factors from natural extracellular matrices can be applied for the treatment of numerous and complicated human diseases. There has been much effort in developing biomaterials that alter their structural properties to deliver growth factors in response to the progress of disease development. However, it remains a challenging issue to develop a biomimetic material that has a high-efficiency retention and strong release regulation of growth factors. In this work, an extracellular matrix mimic was created using superporous hydrogels and nucleic acid aptamers. Superporous hydrogels are highly permeable and would quickly sense and respond to molecular stimuli. However, their high permeability would compromise the sufficient retention of growth factors. To overcome this problem, aptamers were integrated into the hydrogel network and the release kinetics of a growth factor was systematically studied. Aptamers are synthetic ligands with high affinity and specificity for their targets. The results showed that the superporous hydrogel could sequester the growth factor from solution with 97% retention over a period of two weeks. Moreover, the release of the growth factor could be regulated through complementary oligonucleotides. The response of the superporous hydrogel was rapid and the release of growth factors could be tuned via complementary oligonucleotide concentration. Thus, aptamer-functionalized superporous hydrogels are promising extracellular matrix mimics for the high retention and regulated release of growth factors.

Molecularly regulated release of growth factors from superporous hydrogel-based extracellular matrix mimics

247th National Meeting (2014)

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