Polyampholyte-Based Polymer Hydrogels for the Long-Term Storage, Protection and Delivery of Therapeutic Proteins.

Protein storage and delivery are crucial for biomedical applications such as protein therapeutics and recombinant proteins. Lack of proper protocols result in denaturation of proteins, rendering them inactive and manifesting undesired side-effects. In this study, we developed polyampholyte-based (succinylated ε-poly-l-lysine) hydrogels containing polyvinyl alcohol and polyethylene glycol polymer matrices to stabilize proteins. These hydrogels facilitated the loading and release of therapeutic amounts of proteins and withstood thermal and freezing stress (15 freeze-thaw cycles and temperatures of -80 °C and 37 °C), without resulting in protein denaturation and aggregation. To the best of our knowledge, this strategy has not been applied for design of hydrogels constituting polymers, (in particular, polyampholyte-based polymers) which have inherent efficiency to stabilize proteins and protect them from denaturation. Our findings could open up new avenues in protein biopharmaceutics for the design of materials that could store therapeutic proteins long-term under severe stress and safely deliver them. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.