Development of multifunctional collagen scaffolds directed by collagen mimetic peptides

Collagen is widely used for soft tissue replacement and tissue engineering scaffold. Functionalized collagen may offer new and improved applications for collagen-based biomaterials. But passively adsorbed molecules readily diffuse out from collagen matrix, and conventional chemical reactions on collagen are difficult to control and may compromise the biochemical feature of natural collagen. Hence, the aim of this dissertation is to develop a new physical collagen modification method through the non-covalent immobilization of collagen mimetic peptides (CMPs) and CMP derivatives on collagen scaffolds, thereby evading the drawbacks of passive and chemical modifications. Most of the research on CMPs over the past three decades has focused on synthesizing CMPs and understanding the effects of amino acid sequence on the peptide structural stability. Although few attempts have been made to develop biomaterials based on pure CMP, CMP has never used in complex with natural collagen.;We demonstrate that CMPs with varying chain lengths have strong propensity to associate with natural 2-D and 3-D collagen substrates. We also show that CMPs can recognize and bind to reconstituted type I collagen fibers as well as collagens of ex vivo human liver tissue. The practical use of CMPs conjugated with linear and multi-arm poly(ethylene glycol)s allows to control cell organization in 2-D collagen substrates. Our cell adhesion studies suggest that under certain conditions (e.g. high incubation temperature, small CMP size), the bound CMP derivatives can be released from the collagen matrix, which may provide new opportunities for manipulating cell behavior especially by dynamically controlling the amount of signaling molecules in the collagen matrix. Polyanionic charged CMP was synthesized to modulate tubulogenesis of endothelial cells by attracting VEGF with 3-D collagen gel and a new PEG hydrogel using bifunctional CMP conjugates was synthesized as physico-chemical crosslinkers for star-shaped PEG.