Controlling the Release Rate of Therapeutic Proteins from Injectable Alginate Hydrogels Using Charge-Charge Interactions

Abstract

Generally, therapeutic proteins have a short half-life. To complement this, methods are used to induce sustained release of the protein. A typical approach is to deliver the protein by encapsulating it in a functionalized delivery carrier. However, this method is complex as it requires multiple reactions. Therefore, this study demonstrates that the release rate can be controlled by inducing charge-charge interaction between the protein and the delivery carrier. Therapeutic proteins that introduce highly charged peptides and delivery carriers with opposite charges can interact to cause slow release. This method slows the release rate by 2.3 times in vitro. Thus, introducing charged short peptides into therapeutic proteins can be used as a simple and systematic method to control the release rate.