Rheology of Dispersions of High-Aspect-Ratio Nanofibers Assembled from Elastin-Like Double-Hydrophobic Polypeptides.

Elastin-like polypeptides (ELPs) are promising candidates for fabricating tissue-engineering scaffolds that mimic the extracellular environment of elastic tissues. We have developed a "double-hydrophobic" block ELP, , inspired by non-uniform distribution of two different hydrophobic domains in natural elastin. has a block sequence of (VGGVG)-(VPGXG)-(VGGVG) that self-assembles to form nanofibers in water.