Covalent incorporation of non-chemically modified gelatin into degradable PVA-tyramine hydrogels

Development of tissue engineering solutions for biomedical applications has driven the need for integration of biological signals into synthetic materials. Approaches to achieve this typically require chemical modification of the biological molecules. Examples include chemical grafting of synthetic polymers onto protein backbones and covalent modification of proteins using crosslinkable functional groups. However, such chemical modification processes can cause protein degradation, denaturation or loss of biological activity due to side chain disruption. This study exploited the observation that native tyrosine rich proteins could be crosslinked via radical initiated bi-phenol bond formation without any chemical modification of the protein. A new, tyramine functionalised poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) polymer was synthesised and characterised. The tyramine modified PVA (PVA-Tyr) was fabricated into hydrogels using a visible light initiated crosslinking system. Mass loss studies showed that PVA-Tyr hydrogels were completely degraded within 19 days most likely via degradation of ester linkages in the network. Protein incorporation to form a biosynthetic hydrogel was achieved using unmodified gelatin, a protein derived from collagen and results showed that 75% of gelatin was retained in the gel post-polymerisation. Incorporation of gelatin did not alter the sol fraction, swelling ratio and degradation profile of the hydrogels, but did significantly improve the cellular interactions. Moreover, incorporation of as little as 0.01 wt% gelatin was sufficient to facilitate fibroblast adhesion onto PVA-Tyr/gelatin hydrogels. Overall, this study details the synthesis of a new functionalised PVA macromer and demonstrates that tyrosine containing proteins can be covalently incorporated into synthetic hydrogels using this innovative PVA-Tyr system. The resultant degradable biosynthetic hydrogels hold great promise as matrices for tissue engineering applications.