An electroactive and biologically responsive hybrid conjugate based on chemical similarity

Synthetic amino acids have become very important tools for the design of new materials. In this work, an electroactive polymer-amino acid hybrid material has been synthesized by conjugating poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT), a well known conducting polymer, with a synthetic amino acid bearing 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene, which has been explicitly designed and prepared for such a purpose. Nanometric films have been electrochemically generated using a two-step procedure to evaluate the properties and potential applications of the resulting hybrid material. The successful incorporation of the amino acid as end-capping of the PEDOT chains has been proved by FTIR, energy dispersive X-ray and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopies. The fabrication of the hybrid material using an engineered tissue has allowed us to preserve not only morphological and structural characteristics of the conducting polymer but also, and most importantly, to preserve the electrical conductivity, electroactivity, electrochemical stability and specific capacitance. Finally, the behavior of the hybrid material as a cellular matrix has been compared with that of PEDOT using cellular adhesion and proliferation assays. Results obtained in this work represent the success of a new strategy for the preparation of peptide-conducting polymer hybrid materials, which is currently being improved upon by transforming the 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene- containing amino acid into a cell adhesive peptide.