Figure 2.

SEM images of Matrigel and various designer peptide nanofiber scaffolds. a) Matrigel, b) RADA16, c) RADA16-BMHP1, d) RADA16-BMHP2 nanofiber scaffolds assembled in PBS solutions. Matrigel nanostructures are comparable in size to nanofibers found after self-assembly of the designer peptides. Clusters and aggregates of the unidentified naturally derived proteins in Matrigel (a) are absent in the pure peptide scaffolds shown in (b), (c) and (d). The interwoven nanofibers are ∼10 nm in diameter in each of the peptide scaffolds with ∼5–200 nm pores. The appended functional motifs did not prevent peptide self-assembly.