Resilin is an elastomeric protein abundant in insect cuticle. Its exceptional properties, which include high resilience and efficient energy storage, motivate its potential use in tissue engineering and drug delivery applications. Our lab has previously developed recombinant proteins based on the resilin-like sequence derived from Anopheles gambiae and demonstrated their promise as a scaffold for cartilage and vascular engineering. In this work, we describe a more thorough investigation of the physical properties of crosslinked resilin-like hydrogels. The resilin-like proteins rapidly form crosslinked hydrogels in physiological conditions. We also show that the mechanical properties of these resilin-like hydrogels can be modulated simply by varying the protein concentration or the stoichiometric ratio of crosslinker to crosslinking sites. Crosslinked resilin-like hydrogels were hydrophilic and had a high water content when swollen. In addition, these hydrogels exhibited moderate resilience values, which were comparable to those of common synthetic rubbers. Cryo-scanning electron microscopy showed that the crosslinked resilin-like hydrogels at 16 wt% featured a honeycomb-like structure. These studies thus demonstrate the potential to use recombinant resilin-like proteins in a wide variety of applications such as tissue engineering and drug delivery due to their tunable physical properties.

节肢弹性蛋白是昆虫角质层中丰富的弹性蛋白。其卓越的性能，包括高弹性和高效的能量存储，激发了其在组织工程和药物输送应用中的潜在用途。我们的实验室此前已开发出基于冈比亚按蚊的节肢动物蛋白样序列的重组蛋白，并证明了其作为软骨和血管工程支架的前景。在这项工作中，我们描述了对交联节肢弹性蛋白样水凝胶的物理性质的更彻底的研究。节肢动物蛋白样蛋白质在生理条件下迅速形成交联水凝胶。我们还表明，这些类节肢水凝胶的机械性能可以通过改变蛋白质浓度或交联剂与交联位点的化学计量比来简单地调节。交联的节肢动物蛋白样水凝胶是亲水性的，并且在膨胀时具有高含水量。此外，这些水凝胶表现出中等的弹性值，与普通合成橡胶的弹性值相当。冷冻扫描电子显微镜显示，16 wt% 的交联节肢弹性蛋白水凝胶具有蜂窝状结构。因此，这些研究证明了重组节肢动物蛋白由于其可调节的物理特性而在组织工程和药物递送等广泛应用中具有潜力。