Hydrogels for the Controlled Release of Proteins

Department of Pharmaceutics, Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences (UIPS), Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands 

Modern biotechnology has resulted in the production of a great variety of pharmaceutically active proteins (1). Recent statistics show that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved 130 biotechnology-derived protein medicines and vaccines (2). The unfavorable biopharmaceutical properties of these protein drugs, however, have severely hampered their therapeutic and clinical application. First of 

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Hennink WE, Eranssen O, van Dijk-Wolthuis WNE, and Talsma H. Dextran hydrogels for the controlled release of proteins. Journal of Controlled Release 1997 48 107-114. 

MOLECULAR DESIGN OF BIODEGRADABLE DEXTRAN HYDROGELS FOR THE CONTROLLED RELEASE OF PROTEINS... 

Thornton, P.D., Mart, R.J., Webb, S.J. Ulijn, R.V. 2008, Enzyme-responsive hydrogel particles for the controlled release of proteins designing peptide actuators to match payload . Soft Matter, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 821-827. 

Peptide-based nanoflbrous hydrogels, such as the previously described SAPs, have great potential for the controlled release of these exogenous growth factors. There are several techniques currently available to achieve protein delivery via biomaterials (i) modification of the biomaterial so that it may be tether the protein to it (ii) incorporation or encapsulation of the growth factor by the material to allow controlled release (iii) proteolytic release in which the growth factor is tethered by an enzyme degradable... 

Xu, X., Jha, A.K., Duncan, R.L., Jia, X., 2011. Heparin-decorated, hyalnronic acid-based hydrogel particles for the controlled release of bone morphogenetic protein 2. Acta Bio-mateiialia 7, 3050-3059. 

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