Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons^™

The Stiffness Of Three-Dimensional Ionic Self-Assembling Peptide Gels Affects The Extent Of Capillary-Like Network Formation, Alisha Sarang-Sieminski, A Was, G Kim, Haiyan Gong, Roger Kamm

Alisha L. Sarang-Sieminski

Improving our ability to control capillary morphogenesis has implications for not only better understanding of basic biology, but also for applications in tissue engineering and in vitro testing. Numerous biomaterials have been investigated as cellular supports for these applications and the biophysical environment biomaterials provide to cells has been increasingly recognized as an important factor in directing cell function. Here, the ability of ionic self-assembling peptide gels to support capillary morphogenesis and the effect of their mechanical properties is investigated. When placed in a physiological salt solution, these oligopeptides spontaneously self-assemble into gels with an extracellular matrix (ECM)-like microarchitecture. To …