Figure 1.

Scaffold functionalization with THPs (A) THP synthesis pathway. Peptides containing active sequences GFOGER (targeting preferentially α2β1 and α11β1 integrins), GLOGEN (targeting preferentially α1β1 and α10β1 integrins), GPRGQOGVNleGFO (targeting DDR1, DDR2, VWF, SPARC) or GMOGER (targeting all collagen-binding integrins with moderate affinity) flanked by 5 GPP triplets were synthesized, end-stapled and coupled to diazirine to yield photoreactive THPs GFOGER, GLOGEN, VWFIII_Nle and GMOGER, respectively. (B) Scheme of collagen scaffold fabrication and functionalization with THPs. A collagen type I suspension is freeze–dried and cross-linked with EDC/NHS (representative SEM micrograph is shown). THPs were incubated on cross-linked scaffolds and covalently linked to the collagen backbone upon exposure to long-wavelength UV light to obtain THP-functionalized scaffolds.