Self-assembling peptide scaffolds as innovative platforms for drug and cell delivery systems in cardiac regeneration

Today, the use of biomaterials in many biomedical platforms is becoming increasingly popular due to their high diversity, infinite mimicking capacity, and emerging functions. Applications currently cover diverse areas in biomedicine including systems for cell isolation, expansion and maintenance, platforms for drug and cell delivery, scaffolds for tissue engineering, tissue regeneration and repair, cancer therapy, etc. Biomaterials in general can be: (1) natural in origin such as many proteins from the extracellular matrix, natural polysaccharides or scaffolds presented in a blood clot or (2) synthetic, including polymers, ceramics, or peptides. In this review, we focus on the use of self-assembling peptide scaffolds as an innovative and reliable strategy to obtain platforms for cell and drug delivery to injured or diseased tissues and organs. This type of material is molecular by design and it develops spontaneously into nanofiber scaffolds with multiple uses. In particular, examples are given for applications in the area of cardiac repair and regeneration.