title: A Highly Elastic and Rapidly Crosslinkable Elastin-Like Polypeptide-Based Hydrogel for Biomedical Applications.
abstract: Elastin-like polypeptides (ELPs) are promising for biomedical applications due to their unique thermoresponsive and elastic properties. ELP-based hydrogels have been produced through chemical and enzymatic crosslinking or photocrosslinking of modified ELPs. Herein, a photocrosslinked ELP gel using only canonical amino acids is presented. The inclusion of thiols from a pair of cysteine residues in the ELP sequence allows disulfide bond formation upon exposure to UV light, leading to the formation of a highly elastic hydrogel. The physical properties of the resulting hydrogel such as mechanical properties and swelling behavior can be easily tuned by controlling ELP concentrations. The biocompatibility of the engineered ELP hydrogels is shown in vitro as well as corroborated in vivo with subcutaneous implantation of hydrogels in rats. ELP constructs demonstrate long-term structural stability in vivo, and early and progressive host integration with no immune response, suggesting their potential for supporting wound repair. Ultimately, functionalized ELPs demonstrate the ability to function as an in vivo hemostatic material over bleeding wounds.
authors.affiliation: Biomaterials Innovation Research Center, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02139, USA. Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Yi-Nan
authors.initials: YN
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Biomaterials Innovation Research Center, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02139, USA. Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Reginald K
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Avery
authors.affiliation: Biomaterials Innovation Research Center, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02139, USA. Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Laboratory for Cell and Tissue Engineering, Department of Obstetrics, University Hospital Zurich, Zürich CH-8091, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Queralt
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Vallmajo-Martin
authors.affiliation: Biomaterials Innovation Research Center, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02139, USA. Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Heinrich Heine University, 40225 Duesseldorf, Germany.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Assmann
authors.affiliation: Biomaterials Innovation Research Center, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02139, USA. Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S1A4, Canada.
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vegh
authors.affiliation: Biomaterials Innovation Research Center, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02139, USA. Center of Nanotechnology, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Adnan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Memic
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Bradley D
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: Olsen
authors.affiliation: Biomaterials Innovation Research Center, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02139, USA. Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Department of Chemical Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115-5000, USA.
authors.forename: Nasim
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Annabi
authors.affiliation: Biomaterials Innovation Research Center, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02139, USA. Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Department of Physics, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21569, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Khademhosseini