Marine mussels inhabit seashore by attachment themselves using their adhesive proteins. It was suggested that mussel adhesive proteins (MAPs) are not dispersed and maintain their adhesion ability even in sea water due to coacervation. Complex coacervation is liquid/liquid phase separation when the oppositely charged polyelectrolytes meet, followed by separation of condensed and diluted phases. Coacervation process has been suggested to explain the condensation of protein solution. Moreover, condensed coacervates phase has benefit for underwater adhesion in that is non-dissolved in water phase and has an infinitesimal interfacial tension between the complex coacervate phase and water phase. Using these unique properties of coacervates, a new immobilization system for active molecules has been developed. In this work, mussel-inspired complex coacervate which consist of MAPs and hyaluronic acid (HA) were successfully formed at a certain pH and salt concentration. Bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2) as an active molecule was also loaded at nearly 95% with a high stability and well adsorbed on various surfaces due to adhesion ability of MAPs. We found that the immobilized BMP-2 facilitated the differentiation of mouse preosteoblast MC 3T3-E1 cells. Collectively, these results demonstrate that our immobilization system using mussel-inspired complex coacervate could be used as an efficient coating material on a scaffold to regenerate the damaged bone.

Mussel-inspired complex coacervate for bone morphogenetic protein-2 immobilization

247th National Meeting (2014)

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