Bioactive injectable hydrogel conjugated with a synthetic peptide for bone regeneration

摘要

Hard tissue engineering is a developing field pursued at satisfying the needs for the restoration of damaged bone or missed teeth. To achieve the aim, an ideal three-dimensional scaffold should need to provide a mimetic environment according to the original extracellular matrix of hard tissues. Because it is not sufficient to regenerate the targeted tissues with scaffold alone, however, design and fabrication of proper scaffold for bone regenerative engineering have been considered that used with bioactive molecules such as peptides. Herein, the bioactive peptide (Pep) for biomineralization was identified from Osteopontin (OPN) described as a major non-collagenous protein in bone, which influences bone homeostasis both by promoting differentiation of osteoblasts and by enhancing osteoblast activity. In this study, we investigated in vivo long-term localization and effective hard tissue regeneration of human mesenchymal stem cells using enzymatically triggered conjugating system. In brief, the bioactive hydrogels were prepared by conjugating with Pep including the tyrosine residue via an enzyme-mediated reaction, and the cells were incorporated simultaneously into the gels. Taken together, the injectable osteoinductive scaffold might be a potent bone regenerative material due to easier structure formation and more adjustable release of bioactive molecules than conventional regenerative biomaterials.