Peptide substances have shown great potential in the field of biomaterials due to their high design flexibility, excellent biocompatibility, and degradability. Peptide based stimuli responsive biomaterials endow them with unique functions in drug delivery and biological activity regulation.

On March 22, 2025, the journal Chemical Engineering Journal reported that researchers had innovatively designed a photostimulated double network hydrogel based on methacryloylated peptide nanofibers (PNFMA) with high biocompatibility, good biodegradability and multiple functions, and applied it to the regulation of photothermal therapy of tumor cells.

In this work, researchers realized the controllable gel of methacrylic peptide and GelMA through photocrosslinking. Then, methacrylated peptide nanofibers (PNFMA) were used as templates to immobilize uniformly dispersed silver sulfide nanoparticles (Ag2S NPs) through electrostatic interactions. Through the strategy of "intelligent sub assembly optical control molding", we successfully constructed the photoresponsive double complex gel (GelMA/PNFMA-Ag2S). The self-assembled peptide nanofiber (PNFMA) solves the problem of low photothermal efficiency caused by aggregation and improves biocompatibility.

It was found that the hydrogel showed the characteristics of rapid photo controlled gel. Under the irradiation of 365 nm ultraviolet light, the solution could be rapidly transformed into gel within 2 minutes. At the same time, ⽔ gel showed excellent photothermal stability in vitro and in vivo, with a photothermal conversion efficiency of 56.6%, and significantly killing tumor cells. Ag2S NPs driven by electrostatic forces are immobilized on PNFMA, forming a "hotspot dense" photothermal network at the synergistic nanobiological interface. The dual network structure suppresses heat loss, resulting in a tumor ablation rate of 99.9% at 2W/cm2 without off target toxicity.

This photostimulated double network hydrogel not only shows great potential in tumor photothermal therapy, but also can be used in biomedical fields such as stimulation response drug release, wound dressing, etc.

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