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 using coacervation mechanism. Complex coacervation is a liquid-liquid phase separation phenomenon when the oppositely charged polyelectrolytes meet, followed by separation of condensed and diluted phases. The condensed coacervate has benefit for underwater adhesion in that is water-immiscible and has an infinitesimal interfacial tension. Using these unique properties of the coacervates, a new immobilization system for active molecules has been developed. In this work, mussel-inspired complex coacervate which consists of MAPs and hyaluronic acid (HA) was successfully formed at a certain pH and salt concentration. Bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2) as an active molecule was also immobilized at nearly 98% with a high stability and well adsorbed on various surfaces due to adhesion ability of MAPs. We found that the immobilized BMP-2 facilitated differentiation of mouse preosteoblast (MC 3T3-E1) and bone growth at in vivo study (rat calvarial defect model). Collectively, these results demonstrate that our immobilization system using mussel-inspired complex coacervate could be used as a functional coating material for tissue scaffolds.

BMP-2 immobilization using mussel-inspired complex coacervate for tissue engineering

249th National Meeting (2015)

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