Max-1 peptide

Hydrogels are a class of materials that are promising candidates for use in soft tissue and bone engineering. Hydrogels have a high water content, suitable viscoelasticity and biocompatibility. Using hydrogel can help for biomedical applications such as tissue engineering, encapsulation methods for cells and biomolecules, drug delivery or some injectable delivery vehicles for therapeutics. However, hydrogels are mainly used for their antimicrobial properties which are due to the surface of the hydrogel, having the capacity to disrupt negatively-charged bacterial membrane via electrostatic interactions. Antimicrobial activities of hydrogels were shown against gram-positive bacteria such as S.Aureus and gram-negative bacteria like E.Coli. The main interest of employing hydrogels is its biocompatibility in vitro and in vivo which permits to hydrogel to be able to perform an appropriate host response in a specific situation. It also seems that the antimicrobial peptide-based hydrogels are very effective against biofilm adhesion likely due to the physical mode of action involving bacterial membrane disruption. Max 1 is the first MAX peptide described, a 20-amino acid peptide designed to understand peptide intramolecular folding. Max 1 is useful for making hydrogels owing to its ability to change its structural conformation according to environmental changes. Max 1 stays unfolded and soluble in a low ionic strength aqueous solution (10 mM NaCl) at neutral pH however with a high salt concentration (150 mM NaCl) or a higher pH, Max 1 folds into an amphiphilic β-hairpin conformation that can self-assembles to form a network of fibrils that conducts to the formation of a hydrogel hairpin.