Strong, Tough, Stretchable, and Self-Adhesive Hydrogels from Intrinsically Unstructured Proteins

Mark A Gonzalez; Joseph R Simon; Ali Ghoorchian; Zachary Scholl; Shaoting Lin; Michael Rubinstein; Piotr Marszalek; Ashutosh Chilkoti; Gabriel P López; Xuanhe Zhao

doi:10.1002/adma.201604743

Strong, Tough, Stretchable, and Self-Adhesive Hydrogels from Intrinsically Unstructured Proteins

Adv Mater. 2017 Mar;29(10). doi: 10.1002/adma.201604743. Epub 2017 Jan 6.

Authors

Mark A Gonzalez¹, Joseph R Simon², Ali Ghoorchian², Zachary Scholl³, Shaoting Lin⁴, Michael Rubinstein⁵, Piotr Marszalek¹, Ashutosh Chilkoti², Gabriel P López^{2

6}, Xuanhe Zhao^{1

4

7}

Affiliations

¹ NSF Research Triangle Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC, 27708, USA.
² NSF Research Triangle Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC, 27708, USA.
³ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC, 27708, USA.
⁴ Soft Active Materials Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.
⁵ NSF Research Triangle Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, Department of Chemistry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA.
⁶ Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131, USA.
⁷ Department of Civil Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.

PMID: 28060425
DOI: 10.1002/adma.201604743

Abstract

Strong, tough, stretchable, and self-adhesive hydrogels are designed with intrinsically unstructured proteins. The extraordinary mechanical properties exhibited by these materials are enabled by an integration of toughening mechanisms that maintain high elasticity and dissipate mechanical energy within the protein networks.

Keywords: bioinspired materials; hydrogels; recombinant proteins; unstructured polypeptides.

MeSH terms

Adhesives
Elasticity
Hydrogels / chemistry*
Intrinsically Disordered Proteins
Proteins

Substances

Adhesives
Hydrogels
Intrinsically Disordered Proteins
Proteins