Injectable Peptide-Based Functional Amyloid Hydrogels as Tunable Depots for Sustained Drug Delivery.
- 1Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India.
- 2Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technology, Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai, India.
- 3Sunita Sanghi Center of Aging and Neurodegenerative Diseases (SCAN), Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India.
Abstract
Sustained delivery of therapeutic proteins remains a major challenge because rapid degradation and diffusion necessitate frequent dosing, compromising therapeutic efficacy. Here, we present an injectable peptide-based functional amyloid hydrogel as a versatile drug depot that preserves protein stability while enabling sustained cargo release. As a representative therapeutic application, insulin delivery for diabetes was employed to validate the platform. It exhibited excellent biocompatibility and injectability, providing controlled insulin release over 90 h while preserving its structural stability. Following a single subcutaneous administration in diabetic rats, it restored normoglycemia within 30 min and maintained it for 60 h, followed by a rebound at 66 h, representing a much longer period of glucose maintenance than free insulin. Long-term in vivo biosafety studies confirmed the absence of systemic toxicity following repeated administration. To demonstrate the tunability of this platform, it was further engineered with sodium alginate as a representative bioadditive, thereby enabling tunable release kinetics and extending sustained insulin release while maintaining injectability and biocompatibility. Collectively, these findings establish peptide-based functional amyloid hydrogels, either alone or engineered with a bioadditive, as a safe, injectable, and tunable platform for sustained therapeutic delivery, with diabetes serving as a representative proof of concept for broad biomedical applications.
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BibTeX
@article{shaw2026injectable,
title = {{Injectable Peptide-Based Functional Amyloid Hydrogels as Tunable Depots for Sustained Drug Delivery.}},
author = {Ranjit Shaw and Niyamat M A Chimthanawala and Shouvik Manna and Sadhana Sathaye and Samir K Maji},
journal = {Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany)},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1002/advs.78568},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42958744},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Injectable Peptide-Based Functional Amyloid Hydrogels as Tunable Depots for Sustained Drug Delivery.
AU - Ranjit Shaw
AU - Niyamat M A Chimthanawala
AU - Shouvik Manna
AU - Sadhana Sathaye
AU - Samir K Maji
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/29
JO - Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany)
DO - 10.1002/advs.78568
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42958744
AB - Sustained delivery of therapeutic proteins remains a major challenge because rapid degradation and diffusion necessitate frequent dosing, compromising therapeutic efficacy. Here, we present an injectable peptide-based functional amyloid hydrogel as a versatile drug depot that preserves protein stability while enabling sustained cargo release. As a representative therapeutic application, insulin delivery for diabetes was employed to validate the platform. It exhibited excellent biocompatibility and injectability, providing controlled insulin release over 90 h while preserving its structural stability. Following a single subcutaneous administration in diabetic rats, it restored normoglycemia within 30 min and maintained it for 60 h, followed by a rebound at 66 h, representing a much longer period of glucose maintenance than free insulin. Long-term in vivo biosafety studies confirmed the absence of systemic toxicity following repeated administration. To demonstrate the tunability of this platform, it was further engineered with sodium alginate as a representative bioadditive, thereby enabling tunable release kinetics and extending sustained insulin release while maintaining injectability and biocompatibility. Collectively, these findings establish peptide-based functional amyloid hydrogels, either alone or engineered with a bioadditive, as a safe, injectable, and tunable platform for sustained therapeutic delivery, with diabetes serving as a representative proof of concept for broad biomedical applications.
SN - 2198-3844
ER -