Bioactive peptide based supramolecular hydrogel as an efficient drug/cell delivery platform for ophthalmic application

In this work, we reported the generation of a bioactive peptide based supramolecular hydrogel as platform for efficient cell and drug delivery for ophthalmic application. The supramolecular hydrogelator was composed of a self-assemble motif ( e.g., NapFF) and a biofunctional moiety ( e.g., RGD) using glycine (G) as linker. Self-assembly behavior of amphiphile could be finely tuned by the number of glycine, and the optimized NapFFGGRGD amphiphile could self-assemble into supramolecular hydrogel in aqueous solution after heating–cooling procedure. The formed hydrogel was thoroughly characterized by transmission   electron   microscope (TEM), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and rheometer. The proposed NapFFGGRGD hydrogel exhibits great in vitro stability as incubation in cell culture medium for 7 days and supports human corneal epithelial cells (HCECs) proliferation in both 2D and 3D culture model. Both hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs ( i.e., curcumin, vancomycin hydrochloride) could be readily encapsulated into NapFFGGRGD hydrogel without compromising their pharmacological activities. Using a rat model of bacterial keratitis (BK), we evidently demonstrated that vancomycin loaded NapFFGGRGD hydrogel (Van/NapFFGGRGD) effectively cure BK by the elimination of invaded bacteria and the promotion of corneal re-epithelization. As a result, the developed NapFFGGRGD supramolecular hydrogel might be a promising platform for efficient ophthalmic cell/drug delivery.