Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Additionally, DNA gels have been shown to be an ideal candidate for cell capsulation (Um
et al. 2006b), potentially, serving as
in vivo
protein factory for protein synthesis and delivery
(Park et al. 2009). Examples of the studies using DNA-only, DNA-as-backbone, and DNA
crosslinked macromaterials on potential drug or gene delivery applications and the kinetics
of release are in
Figure 7
.
Fig. 7. Kinetics in the release of therapeutic agent using DNA based macromaterials. (
A
)
Release of insulin (solid line) and CPT (camptothecin, dotted line) from a DNA-only gel.
From top down, the lines indicate Y-, T-, X-, and T- DNA gels. Extracted from (Um et al.
2006b). (
B
) Release of gold nanoparticles from an aptamer-crosslinked hydrogel at
interaction with cocaine. Extracted from (Zhu et al. 2010). (
C
) Release of antihypertensive
nicardipine hydrochloride containing one nitro group from a physical DNA gel based on
DNA and SP-PPV interactions. Extracted from (Tang et al. 2009) with publisher's permission
(D) Cumulative release of DNA from a EGDE crosslinked DNA (as backbone) gel with
various crosslinking density under sunlight. Extracted from (Costa et al. 2010). All images
with publisher's permission.
3.2.3 Biomaterials/Tissue engineering
As mentioned in the previous discussion, hydrogel materials has been gaining increasing
popularity due to its hydrated state mimicking natural tissues (Janmey et al. 2009, Nemir &
West 2009, Uibo et al. 2009). Following this direction, one line of interest in applying DNA
based macro-materials is to study cell-ECM interactions, an analog of tissue-biomaterials
interplay. A DNA only gel system has been proved to possess cyto-biocompatibility by
