An Injectable Self-Healing Protein Hydrogel with Multiple Dissipation Modes and Tunable Dynamic Response.

ABSTRACT

Hydrogels with dynamic mechanical properties are of special interest in the field of tissue engineering and drug delivery. However, it remains challenging to tailor the dynamic mechanical response of hydrogels to simultaneously meet diverse application needs. Here, we report a hetero-coiled-coil complex cross-linked protein hydrogel exhibiting unusual multiple energy dissipation modes and tunable dynamic response. Such unique features confer on the hydrogel responsiveness to mechanical stimuli in a broad range of frequencies. Therefore, the hydrogels are injectable due to their shearing-thinning properties at low shear rates of 0.8 rad s-1 and can fully recover their mechanical properties within a few seconds due to the intrinsic fast dynamics of the cross-linkers. Moreover, the dynamic response of these hydrogels can be fine-tuned by the temperature and the hydrogel network structures. We anticipate that these hydrogels are promising candidates for delivering therapeutic drugs, biological molecules, and cells in a broad spectrum of biomedical applications.