Supramolecular Biopolymers for Tissue Engineering

Figure 4

(a) Coassembly mechanism of thixotropic hydrogel. Nanofibers are a result of stacking and hydrogen bonding interactions among the residues of the monomer. The properties of the hydrogel are tuned with the use of β-cyclodextrin, in order to obstruct the assembly structure, which allows the hydrogel to be injectable. (b) A silk fibroin hydrogel was loaded with mesenchymal stem cells and growth factors that would allow cellular differentiation when bent in an in vivo model. (c) The hydrogel was separated with a molecular sieve, prepared under an electric field. The results show that the material retains a hierarchical, aligned structure. These figures have been reproduced with permission from the American Chemical Society and John Wiley and Sons [65, 105].

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