Adriana Ender: Amyloid-like Scaffolds for Controllable Cell-material Interactions

Amyloid-like peptides are self-assembling peptides with a high cross β-sheet amount, featuring mechanical stiffness, intrinsic bioactivity and strong adhesion to various substrates. They can mimic essential features of the extracellular matrix (ECM) such as its fibrous morphology, mechanical properties, and chemical cues, which makes them interesting as scaffolds for tissue engineering.[1,2] In the ECM topographical gradients, patterns and biological signals provide essential roles in guiding tissue orientation and function. For example, fibrillar scaffolds enable efficient cell-material interactions in terms of proliferation and cell infiltration at the mesoscopic length scale.[3-5] To reach the goal of tissue function control we need to control the scaffold morphology and/or bioactivity. Here, we designed smart Amyloid-like fibrils which can be controlled by simple external stimuli like light or pH and change their bioactive response to the cell culture.