Elastin hydrogels

This bachelor thesis is focused on elastin hydrogels for medical application. The aim of the experimental part was using elastin as an additional substance in polysaccharide gel matrices. The most available elastin material was elastin from bovine neck ligament. Because of the insolubility of elastin, it needed to be hydrolysed. Elastin was hydrolysed using potassium hydroxide. The hydrolysis product was soluble and thermal stable elastin peptides, called elastin. Prepared -elastin was incorporated in agarose gel matrices to produce semi-IPN hydrogels based on elastin and agarose. These hydrogels were characterized by rheologicalamplitude and frequency sweeps. The results of measuring clearly proved that -elastin addition caused increased hydrogel stiffness, but other changes were not observed