Rheological Modeling to Assess the Gelation Kinetics of Mono- and Multicomponent Supramolecular Hydrogels.

Abstract

Supramolecular hydrogels based on peptides have emerged as versatile soft materials owing to their biocompatibility, modularity, and tunable mechanical properties. To overcome the limitations of natural peptide sequences, nucleobase-peptide hybrids (nucleopeptides) have been developed, enabling coassembly and enhanced gel properties. However, their practical use requires a precise description of gelation kinetics, which remains difficult to model and predict. Herein, we apply a new rheological methodology to monitor the gelation of a specific type of supramolecular hydrogel, formulated from peptide/DNA nucleobase hybrids termed nucleopeptides. Thus, we developed an open-access program (available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21317179) that successfully predicts the elastic moduli obtained experimentally for the four considered nucleopeptide-based hydrogels, as well as for multicomponent hydrogels formulated from nucleopeptide mixtures.