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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2011 May 1.
Published in final edited form as: Biomaterials. 2010 Feb 6;31(13):3736–3743. doi: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2010.01.058

Figure 1.

Figure 1

(a) Synthetic scheme. PEG 3400 is reacted with acryloyl chloride to form PEGDA, which is then reacted with cysteine-bearing peptides via Michael-type addition to form cell-adhesive or, in a separate reaction, MMP-sensitive PEG-acrylate macromers. Reaction stoichiometry controls the molecular weight and polydispersity of the resultant species during step-growth polymerization. (b) Schematic illustration of hydrogel structure. Photopolymerization of the photoactive precursors from (a) yields bioactive hydrogels with multiple MMP-sensitive peptides per backbone chain, with pendant cell-adhesive ligands tethered from sites of acrylate crosslinking.