Stimuli Responsive Self-Assembled Hydrogel of a Low Molecular Weight Free Dipeptide with Potential for Tunable Drug Delivery

摘要

Bottom-up fabrication by molecular self-assembly is now widely recognized as a potent method for generating interesting and functional nano-and mesoscale structures.Hydrogels from biocompatible molecules are an interesting class of mesoscale assemblies with potential biomedical applications.The self-assembly of a proteolysis resistant aromatic dipeptide containing a conformational constraining residue(APhe)into a stable hydrogel has been studied in this work.The reported dipeptide has free-N and-C termini.The hydrogel was self-supportive,was fractaline in nature,and possessed high mechanical strength.It was responsive to environmental conditions like pH,temperature,and ionic strength.The gel matrix could encapsulate and release bioactive molecules in a sustained manner.The described hydrogel showed no observable cytotoxicity to the HeLa and L929 cell lines in culture.