Design and synthesis of elastin-like polypeptides for an ideal nerve conduit in peripheral nerve regeneration

Interactions between Schwann cell and extracellular matrix in peripheral nerve regeneration

Peripheral nerve injuries, caused by various reasons, often lead to severe sensory, motor, and autonomic dysfunction or permanent disability, posing a challenging problem in regenerative medicine. Autologous nerve transplantation has been the gold standard in traditional treatments but faces numerous limitations and risk factors, such as donor area denervation, increased surgical complications, and diameter or nerve bundle mismatches. The extracellular matrix (ECM) is a complex molecular network synthesized and released into the extracellular space by cells residing in tissues or organs. Its main components include collagen, proteoglycans/glycosaminoglycans, elastin, laminin, fibronectin, etc., providing structural and biochemical support to surrounding cells, crucial for cell survival and growth. Schwann cells, as the primary glial cells in the peripheral nervous system, play various important roles. Schwann cell transplantation is considered the gold standard in cell therapy for peripheral nerve injuries, making ECM derived from Schwann cells one of the most suitable biomaterials for peripheral nerve repair. To better understand the mechanisms of Schwann cells and the ECM in peripheral nerve regeneration and their optimal application, this review provides an overview of their roles in peripheral nerve regeneration.

Pulmonary Visceral Pleura Biomaterial: Elastin- and Collagen-Based Extracellular Matrix

Objective: The goal of the study is to determine the structural characteristics, mechanical properties, cytotoxicity, and biocompatibility of the pulmonary visceral pleura (PVP).

Background: Collagen and elastin are the major components of the extracellular matrix. The PVP has an abundance of elastin and collagen that can serve as a potential biomaterial for clinical repair and reconstructions.

Methods: The PVP was processed from swine and bovine lungs. Chemical analyses were used to determine collagen and elastin contents in the PVPs. Immunofluorescence microscopy was used to analyze the structure of the PVP. The stress–strain relationships and stress relaxation were determined by using the planar uniaxial test. The cytotoxicity of the PVP was tested in cultured cells. In in vivo evaluations, the PVP was implanted in the sciatic nerve and skin of rats.

Results: Collagen and elastin contents are abundant in the PVP with larger proportions of elastin than in the bovine pericardium and porcine small intestinal submucosa. A microstructural analysis revealed that the elastin fibers were distributed throughout the PVP and the collagen was distributed mainly in the mesothelial basal lamina. The incremental moduli in stress–strain curves and relaxation moduli in the Maxwell–Wiechert model of PVP were approximately one-tenth of the bovine pericardium and small intestinal submucosa. The minimal cytotoxicity of the PVP was demonstrated. The axons proliferated in the PVP conduit guidance from proximal to distal sciatic nerves of rats. The neo-skin regenerated under the PVP skin substitute within 4 weeks.

Conclusions: The PVP is composed of abundant collagen and elastin. The structural characteristics and mechanical compliance of the PVP render a suitable biological material for repair/reconstruction.

Targeting of Cisplatin-Resistant Melanoma Using a Multivalent Ligand Presenting an Elastin-like Polypeptide

Acquired drug resistance is a common occurrence and the main cause of melanoma treatment failure. Melanoma cells frequently developed resistance against cisplatin during chemotherapy, and thus, targeting delivery systems have been devised to decrease drug resistance, increase therapeutic efficacy, and reduce side effects. We genetically engineered a macromolecular carrier using the recursive directional ligation method that specifically targets cisplatin-resistant (Cis-R) melanoma. This carrier is composed of an elastin-like polypeptide (ELP) and multiple copies of Cis-R melanoma-targeting ligands (M-peptide). The designed M₁₆E₁₀₈ contains 16 targeting ligands incorporated within an ELP and has an ideal thermal phase transition at 39 °C. When treated to melanoma cells, M₁₆E₁₀₈ specifically accumulated in Cis-R B16F10 melanoma cells and accumulated to a lesser extent in parental B16F10 cells. Consistently, M₁₆E₁₀₈ exhibited efficient homing and longer retention in tumor tissues in Cis-R melanoma-bearing mice than in parental B16F10 melanoma-bearing mice. Thus, M₁₆E₁₀₈ was found to display considerable potential as a novel agent that specifically targets cisplatin-resistant melanoma.

Non-chromatographic purification of thermostable endoglucanase from Thermotoga maritima by fusion with a hydrophobic elastin-like polypeptide

Endoglucanase EG12B from Thermotoga maritima is a thermophilic cellulase that has great potential for industrial applications. Here, to enable the selective purification of EG12B in a simple and efficient manner, an elastin-like polypeptide (ELP), which acts as a thermally responsive polypeptide, was fused with EG12B to enable its inverse phase transition cycling (ITC). A small gene library comprising ELPs from ELP₅ to ELP₅₀ was constructed using recursive directional ligation by plasmid reconstruction. ELP₅₀ was added to the C-terminus of EG12B as a fusion tag to obtain the expression vector pET28-EG12B-ELP₅₀, which was transformed into Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3) to enable the expression of fusion protein via IPTG induction. Gray scanning analysis revealed that the EG12B-ELP₅₀ expression level was up to about 35% of the total cellular proteins. After three rounds of ITC, 8.14 mg of EG12B-ELP₅₀ was obtained from 500-mL lysogeny broth culture medium. The recovery rate and purification fold of EG12B-ELP₅₀ purified by ITC reached 78.1% and 11.8, respectively. The cellulase activity assay showed that EG12B-ELP₅₀ had a better thermostability, higher optimal temperature, and longer half-life than those of free EG12B. Overall, our results suggested that ELP₅₀ could be used as a favorable fusion tag, providing a rapid, simple, and inexpensive strategy for non-chromatographic target-protein purification.

Redox-Responsive Resilin-Like Hydrogels for Tissue Engineering and Drug Delivery Applications

Resilin, a protein found in insect cuticles, is renowned for its outstanding elastomeric properties. The authors' laboratory previously developed a recombinant protein, which consisted of consensus resilin-like repeats from Anopheles gambiae, and demonstrated its potential in cartilage and vascular engineering. To broaden the versatility of the resilin-like protein, this study utilizes a cleavable crosslinker, which contains a disulfide bond, to develop smart resilin-like hydrogels that are redox-responsive. The hydrogels exhibit a porous structure and a stable storage modulus (G') of ≈3 kPa. NIH/3T3 fibroblasts cultured on hydrogels for 24 h have a high viability (>95%). In addition, the redox-responsive hydrogels show significant degradation in a reducing environment (10 mm glutathione (GSH)). The release profiles of fluorescently labeled dextrans encapsulated within the hydrogels are assessed in vitro. For dextran that is estimated to be larger than the mesh size of the gel, faster release is observed in the presence of reducing agents due to degradation of the hydrogel networks. These studies thus demonstrate the potential of using these smart hydrogels in a variety of applications ranging from scaffolds for tissue engineering to drug delivery systems that target the intracellular reductive environments of tumors.

Biotechnological applications of elastin-like polypeptides and the inverse transition cycle in the pharmaceutical industry

Proteins are essential throughout the biological and biomedical sciences and the purification strategies of proteins of interest have advanced over centuries. Elastin-like polypeptides (ELPs) are compound polymers that have recently been highlighted for their sharp and reversible phase transition property when heated above their lower critical solution temperature (LCST). ELPs preserve this behavior when fused to a protein, and as a result providing a simple method to isolate a recombinant ELP fusion protein from cell contaminants by taking the solution through the soluble and insoluble phase of the ELP fusion protein, a technique designated as the inverse transition cycle (ITC). ITC is considered an inexpensive and efficient way of purifying recombinant ELP fusion proteins. In addition, ELPs render recombinant fusion protein more stability and a longer clear time in blood stream, which give ELPs a lot of valuable applications in the biotechnological and pharmaceutical industry. This article reviews the modernizations of ELPs and briefly highlights on the possible use of technologies such as the automatic piston discharge (APD) centrifuges to improve the efficiency of the ITC in the pharmaceutical industry to obtain benefits.

Scaffolds for peripheral nerve repair and reconstruction

Trauma-associated peripheral nerve defect is a widespread clinical problem. Autologous nerve grafting, the current gold standard technique for the treatment of peripheral nerve injury, has many internal disadvantages. Emerging studies showed that tissue engineered nerve graft is an effective substitute to autologous nerves. Tissue engineered nerve graft is generally composed of neural scaffolds and incorporating cells and molecules. A variety of biomaterials have been used to construct neural scaffolds, the main component of tissue engineered nerve graft. Synthetic polymers (e.g. silicone, polyglycolic acid, and poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid)) and natural materials (e.g. chitosan, silk fibroin, and extracellular matrix components) are commonly used along or together to build neural scaffolds. Many other materials, including the extracellular matrix, glass fabrics, ceramics, and metallic materials, have also been used to construct neural scaffolds. These biomaterials are fabricated to create specific structures and surface features. Seeding supporting cells and/or incorporating neurotrophic factors to neural scaffolds further improve restoration effects. Preliminary studies demonstrate that clinical applications of these neural scaffolds achieve satisfactory functional recovery. Therefore, tissue engineered nerve graft provides a good alternative to autologous nerve graft and represents a promising frontier in neural tissue engineering.

Biodegradable Bisvinyl Sulfonemethyl-crosslinked Gelatin Conduit Promotes Regeneration after Peripheral Nerve Injury in Adult Rats

In our previous study, we found that gelatin-based materials exhibit good conductivity and are non-cytotoxic. In this study, gelatin was cross-linked with bisvinyl sulfonemethyl (BVSM) to fabricate a biodegradable conduit for peripheral nerve repair. First, BVSM on the prepared conduit was characterized to determine its mechanical properties and contact angle. The maximum tensile strength and water contact angle of the gelatin-BVSM conduits were 23 ± 4.8 MPa and 74.7 ± 9°, which provided sufficient mechanical strength to resist muscular contraction; additionally, the surface was hydrophilic. Cytotoxicity and apoptosis assays using Schwann cells demonstrated that the gelatin-BVSM conduits are non-cytotoxic. Next, we examined the neuronal electrophysiology, animal behavior, neuronal connectivity, macrophage infiltration, calcitonin gene-related peptide localization and expression, as well as the expression levels of nerve regeneration-related proteins. The number of fluorogold-labelled cells and histological analysis of the gelatin-BVSM nerve conduits was similar to that observed with the clinical use of silicone rubber conduits after 8 weeks of repair. Therefore, our results demonstrate that gelatin-BVSM conduits are promising substrates for application as bioengineered grafts for nerve tissue regeneration.

Modular protein domains: an engineering approach toward functional biomaterials

Protein domains and peptide sequences are a powerful tool for conferring specific functions to engineered biomaterials. Protein sequences with a wide variety of functionalities, including structure, bioactivity, protein-protein interactions, and stimuli responsiveness, have been identified, and advances in molecular biology continue to pinpoint new sequences. Protein domains can be combined to make recombinant proteins with multiple functionalities. The high fidelity of the protein translation machinery results in exquisite control over the sequence of recombinant proteins and the resulting properties of protein-based materials. In this review, we discuss protein domains and peptide sequences in the context of functional protein-based materials, composite materials, and their biological applications.

Fabricated Elastin

The mechanical stability, elasticity, inherent bioactivity, and self-assembly properties of elastin make it a highly attractive candidate for the fabrication of versatile biomaterials. The ability to engineer specific peptide sequences derived from elastin allows the precise control of these physicochemical and organizational characteristics, and further broadens the diversity of elastin-based applications. Elastin and elastin-like peptides can also be modified or blended with other natural or synthetic moieties, including peptides, proteins, polysaccharides, and polymers, to augment existing capabilities or confer additional architectural and biofunctional features to compositionally pure materials. Elastin and elastin-based composites have been subjected to diverse fabrication processes, including heating, electrospinning, wet spinning, solvent casting, freeze-drying, and cross-linking, for the manufacture of particles, fibers, gels, tubes, sheets and films. The resulting materials can be tailored to possess specific strength, elasticity, morphology, topography, porosity, wettability, surface charge, and bioactivity. This extraordinary tunability of elastin-based constructs enables their use in a range of biomedical and tissue engineering applications such as targeted drug delivery, cell encapsulation, vascular repair, nerve regeneration, wound healing, and dermal, cartilage, bone, and dental replacement.

Fibrous proteins: At the crossroads of genetic engineering and biotechnological applications

Fibrous proteins, such as silk, elastin and collagen are finding broad impact in biomaterial systems for a range of biomedical and industrial applications. Some of the key advantages of biosynthetic fibrous proteins compared to synthetic polymers include the tailorability of sequence, protein size, degradation pattern, and mechanical properties. Recombinant DNA production and precise control over genetic sequence of these proteins allows expansion and fine tuning of material properties to meet the needs for specific applications. We review current approaches in the design, cloning, and expression of fibrous proteins, with a focus on strategies utilized to meet the challenges of repetitive fibrous protein production. We discuss recent advances in understanding the fundamental basis of structure-function relationships and the designs that foster fibrous protein self-assembly towards predictable architectures and properties for a range of applications. We highlight the potential of functionalization through genetic engineering to design fibrous protein systems for biotechnological and biomedical applications.