GELATIN FUNCTIONALIZATION WITH SULFATED GLYCOSAMINOGLICANS AND ITS CHARACTERIZATIONS

Biomaterials used for biomedical applications are composed by natural, synthetic or hybrid crosslinked polymers. Furthermore, they can also be functionalized with bioactive molecules, to obtain suitable biological and morphological properties, to provide in vitro tissue models to study cell fate [1,2]. Gelatin is a biopolymer obtained from hydrolysis of collagen, it is biodegradable, biocompatible, and relatively inexpensive [3]. All these features make gelatin ideal for the design and development of new functional materials for biomedical applications. In addition, gelatin-based materials are excellent bioactive compounds to support cell adhesion and proliferation [2]. Heparin is a sulphated linear polysaccharide belonging to the family of glycosaminoglycans (GAG); it is widely used in pharmaceutical field as an anticoagulant and it’s able to interact with many cell surface receptors and extracellular (ECM) proteins [5]. In this work, gelatin was functionalized, by a reductive amination reaction, with deaminated heparin to generate composite bioactive polymers useful for medical device coating or for tissue regeneration strategies. The structural characterizations of starting materials and final products were investigated with NMR spectroscopy, High-Performance-Size Exclusion Chromatography with Triplo Detector Array, Zeta Potential, Photo Correlation Spectroscopy and finally studies of the rheological properties were performed. To test the activity of heparin linked to gelatin, the interaction of the conjugate Hep-Gelatin product with Platelet factor 4 protein (PF4), a protein involved in thrombocytopenia, a side effect of the administration of heparin, was investigated. The Hep-Gelatin product is characterized by a molecular weight (Mw) around 230KDa, higher than the started gelatin (Mw of 150KDa), a molar ratio Heparin-gelatin of 0.14, determined by colorimetric assay and different physicochemical properties than the gelatin, such for example a lower viscosity. It has been demonstrated that in hep-gelatin conjugate, interaction between PF4 and Heparin is maintained. REFERENCES: 1. Nicotra, F. Et Al European J. Org. Chem. 2021, 2021, 374–382. 2. Russo, L. Et Al Biomacromolecules 2020, 21, 1968–1994. 3. Gabilondo, N. RSC Adv. Et Al 2014, 4, 35578–35587. 5. Kamiya, N. Et Al ACS Appl. Biomater. 2019, 2, 2600–2609.