Fig. 1.

Schematic of ELP hydrogel formation. ELP consists of 4 repeats of a cassette containing 1 bioactive domain and 3 identical elastin-like domains, which include lysine residues within the elastin-like domain to provide amine reactive crosslinking sites that form covalent bonds with THPC (A). Elastic moduli of 5 wt% ELP hydrogels (n = 4-5) with varying THPC:ELP reactive group stoichiometry (B). Effective diffusion coefficient for 70 kDa FITC-dextran in 5 wt% ELP hydrogels of varying crosslink density (C). All values are reported as mean ± SEM, where * denotes significant different p < 0.05.