Bovine serum albumin hydrogel has excellent biocompatibility and biodegradability

and is widely used in the field of tissue engineering. So far

injectable bovine serum albumin hydrogel has been successfully prepared

but its mechanical properties still need to be improved. This paper used a simple method to improve the mechanical properties of the injectable albumin hydrogel. Urea was used as a denaturant and glutathione was used as a reducing agent to prepare an albumin gel network with the synergistic effect of hydrogen bonds and disulfide bonds

and the cationic polypeptide ε- polylysine was physically mixed in the system after the protein was completely denatured. ε-polylysine was adsorbed into the chains of bovine serum albumin molecular by electrostatic interaction and gradually formed hydrogen bonds with bovine serum albumin and urea to strengthen the bovine serum albumin gel network while the injectability of the hydrogel was retained. The results showed that the hydrogel with ε-polylysine could increase the maximum compressive stress from 105kPa to 315kPa

and the storage modulus from about 8kPa to 17kPa. The improvement of mechanical properties expands the application of albumin hydrogel in the field of tissue engineering.