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Hydrolytically Degradable Thiol–ene Hydrogels for Protein Release
Author(s) -
Rehmann Matthew S.,
Garibian Andrew C.,
Kloxin April M.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
macromolecular symposia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.257
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1521-3900
pISSN - 1022-1360
DOI - 10.1002/masy.201200133
Subject(s) - thiol , self healing hydrogels , ene reaction , polymer chemistry , materials science , chemistry , polymer science , chemical engineering , organic chemistry , engineering
Summary A new degradable PEG‐diester‐dinorbornene/PEG‐triester‐trithiol hydrogel was evaluated for protein release. The hydrogel polymerized rapidly with seconds of UV irradiation and subsequently hydrolytically degraded in aqueous buffer over the course of approximately 3 weeks. Further, the hydrogel enabled the encapsulation and release of a model protein, bovine serum albumin (BSA), over 7 days with ∼ 90% released at 48 h. This study serves as a proof‐of‐concept for the creation of hydrolytically degradable, PEG‐ester‐thiol‐based hydrogels by a photoinitiated step growth mechanism for protein release. With this approach, degradation and release rates could be tuned by varying the monomer molecular weight and functionality in future studies.