AUTHOR=Adibi-Motlagh Behzad , Hashemi Ehsan , Akhavan Omid , Khezri Jafar , Rezaei Aram , Zamani Amir Zakria Javad , Siadat Seyed Davar , Sahebghadam Lotfi Abbas , Farmany Abbas TITLE=Immobilization of modular peptides on graphene cocktail for differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells to hepatic-like cells JOURNAL=Frontiers in Chemistry VOLUME=10 YEAR=2022 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/chemistry/articles/10.3389/fchem.2022.943003 DOI=10.3389/fchem.2022.943003 ISSN=2296-2646 ABSTRACT=

In this study, two novel biomimetic modular peptide motifs based on the alpha-2 subunit of type IV collagen (CO4A2) were designed and immobilized on a graphene platform to imitate integrin and heparan sulfate- (HS-) binding proteins. The in silico study was used to design 9-mer K[KGDRGD]AG and 10-mer KK[SGDRGD]AG for testing designed Integrin-Binding Peptide (dIBP) and HS-Binding Peptide (dHBP). The virtual docking technique was used to optimize the peptide motifs and their relevant receptors. Molecular dynamic (MD) simulation was used to evaluate the stability of peptide-receptor complexes. The effect of the platform on the differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) to hepatic-like cells (HLCs) was evaluated. After differentiation, some hepatic cells’ molecular markers such as albumin, AFP, CK-18, and CK-19 were successfully followed. Graphene-heparan sulfate binding peptide (G-HSBP) enhances the mature hepatic markers’ expression instead of control (p ≤ 0.05). The pathological study showed that the designed platform is safe, and no adverse effects were seen till 21 days after implantation.