Abstract
Injectable hydrogels based on synthetic peptides have shown great promise in many biomedical applications. Yet, the high cost generally associated with synthetic peptides hinders the practical use of such peptide-based injectable hydrogel. To overcome this drawback, here, we propose to use the peptides from hydrolyzed low-cost natural protein as an economical and convenient peptide source to prepare an injectable hydrogel. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this alternative strategy using hen egg white lysozyme (HEWL) as an example. We used the peptide fragments from hydrolyzed HEWL as the gelator, and the magnesium ion as the performance enhancer to prepare the injectable hydrogel. We showed that the hydrogel is an amyloid gel as it was formed by a dense network of amyloid fibrils. We also showed that the hydrogel possesses a thixotropic property and displays a low cytotoxicity. The hydrolysis extent of HEWL was found to be a critical factor that influences the performance of the hydrogel. A fluorescence assay based on 8-anilinonaphthalene-1-sulfonic acid was proposed as a mean to precisely and conveniently control the hydrolysis extent of HEWL to enable the best injectability performance. At last, using doxorubicin as a model compound, we explored the potential of this amyloid-based hydrogel as an injectable drug carrier.