A sandcastle worm-inspired strategy to functionalize wet hydrogels

Donghui Zhang, Jingjing Liu, Qi Chen, Weinan Jiang, Yibing Wang, Jiayang Xie, Kaiqian Ma, Chao Shi, Haodong Zhang, Minzhang Chen, Jianglin Wan, Pengcheng Ma, Jingcheng Zou, Wenjing Zhang, Feng Zhou and Runhui Liu ()
Additional contact information
Donghui Zhang: East China University of Science and Technology
Jingjing Liu: East China University of Science and Technology
Qi Chen: East China University of Science and Technology
Weinan Jiang: East China University of Science and Technology
Yibing Wang: East China University of Science and Technology
Jiayang Xie: East China University of Science and Technology
Kaiqian Ma: East China University of Science and Technology
Chao Shi: East China University of Science and Technology
Haodong Zhang: East China University of Science and Technology
Minzhang Chen: East China University of Science and Technology
Jianglin Wan: East China University of Science and Technology
Pengcheng Ma: East China University of Science and Technology
Jingcheng Zou: East China University of Science and Technology
Wenjing Zhang: East China University of Science and Technology
Feng Zhou: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Runhui Liu: East China University of Science and Technology

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: Abstract Hydrogels have been extensively used in many fields. Current synthesis of functional hydrogels requires incorporation of functional molecules either before or during gelation via the pre-organized reactive site along the polymer chains within hydrogels, which is tedious for polymer synthesis and not flexible for different types of hydrogels. Inspired by sandcastle worm, we develop a simple one-step strategy to functionalize wet hydrogels using molecules bearing an adhesive dibutylamine-DOPA-lysine-DOPA tripeptide. This tripeptide can be easily modified with various functional groups to initiate diverse types of polymerizations and provide functional polymers with a terminal adhesive tripeptide. Such functional molecules enable direct modification of wet hydrogels to acquire biological functions such as antimicrobial, cell adhesion and wound repair. The strategy has a tunable functionalization degree and a stable attachment of functional molecules, which provides a tool for direct and convenient modification of wet hydrogels to provide them with diverse functions and applications.

Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-26659-0 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-26659-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-26659-0

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().