2014 Volume 47 Issue 11 Pages 835-840
Carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) hydrogels are promising materials for tissue engineering. In this study, we proposed a method to modify an enzymatically gellable CMC derivative (CMC-Ph) hydrogel by fusing target proteins to a carbohydrate-binding module (CBM). We designed a genetically engineered protein consisting of CBM from Clostridium thermocellum CelJ and green fluorescence protein (GFP) as a model marker. The partition coefficient of CBM-fused GFP, which is the ratio of protein concentration in the hydrogel phase to that in the liquid phase, was about 7 times higher than that of wild-type GFP. In addition, the fusion protein maintained its binding capacity towards the CMC-Ph hydrogel for about two weeks. The high binding capacity of the fusion protein was also preserved in serum-containing medium for animal cell culture. These findings demonstrated that fusing proteins on a CBM is a useful method for creating CMC-derived hydrogels.
