Synthesis and structural investigation of guanine functionalized hydrogels and their biomedical applications

Abstract

Self-assembly is a process by which components organize themselves into patterns or structures. It is a very effective method for creating a wide range of useful materials. Self-assembly is a valuable technique for creating hydrogels. The use of self-assembly is employed to arrange small molecules to produce hydrogels where the molecules form a network by physical interconnection. These materials are created by the reversible and dynamic bonding of certain components. Self-assembly is a commonly observed phenomenon in the natural systems. Therefore, hydrogels are polymeric three-dimensional networks that can hold a large amount of water molecules. Due to their water absorbing properties, they are biocompatible in nature. In addition to biocompatibility, hydrogels possess exciting properties such as stimuli-responsive, self-healing, and thermoreversibility. Hydrogels are extensively used in the biomedical field for application such as drug delivery, bioimaging, bioactive scaffold, 3D bioprinting, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine. Peptides have been extensively used as fundamental components in the self-assembly process. However, nucleobase functionalized amino acids/peptides have not been well explored to date. Nucleobases and peptides are the fundamental building blocks of life.