Dual thermal- and pH-responsive polypeptide-based hydrogels

Smart hydrogels have received increasing attention for their great potential for the applications in many fields. Herein, we report a facile approach to prepare a class of dual-responsive hydrogels assembled from synthetic statistical/block thermal-responsive copoly(L-glutamate)s copolymerized with...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Chinese journal of polymer science 2017-10, Vol.35 (10), p.1243-1252
Main Authors: Meng, Fan-dong, Ni, Yun-xia, Ji, Si-fan, Fu, Xiao-hui, Wei, Yu-han, Sun, Jing, Li, Zhi-bo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biomedical materials
Block copolymers
Characterization and Evaluation of Materials
Chemistry
Chemistry and Materials Science
Condensed Matter Physics
Copolymerization
Dichroism
Gelation
Gels
Glutamic acid
Hydrogels
Industrial Chemistry/Chemical Engineering
Polyethylene glycol
Polymer Sciences
Ring opening polymerization
Statistical analysis
Statistical methods
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Smart hydrogels have received increasing attention for their great potential for the applications in many fields. Herein, we report a facile approach to prepare a class of dual-responsive hydrogels assembled from synthetic statistical/block thermal-responsive copoly(L-glutamate)s copolymerized with poly(ethylene glycol), which were prepared by ring-opening polymerization (ROP) and post-modification strategy. The incorporation of oligo(ethylene glycol) (OEG) and glutamic acid residues offers the gels with thermal- and pH-responsive properties simultaneously. We have systematically studied the influence of both temperature and pH on the gelation behaviors of these copolymers. It is found that the increase of glutamic acid content and solution pH values can significantly suppress the gelation ability of the samples. Circular dichroism (CD) results show that the α -helix conformation appears to be the dominant secondary conformation. More interestingly, the gelation property of the block copolymer with statistical thermal-responsive copoly(L-glutamate)s shows greater dependence on pH as compared to that with block segments due to the distinct morphology of the self-assemblies. The obtained hydrogels exhibit pH-dependent and thermal-responsive gelation behaviors, which enable them as an ideal smart hydrogel system for biomedical applications.
ISSN:0256-7679
1439-6203
DOI:10.1007/s10118-017-1959-9