Emerging Areas in Bioengineering

Chapter 38Mussel-Mimetic Biomaterials for Tissue Engineering Applications

Yun Kee Jo, Hyo Jeong Kim, Eun Yeong Jeon, Bong-Hyuk Choi and Hyung Joon Cha

* These authors equally contributed.

38.1 Introduction

In seawater, mussels strongly attach to solid surfaces with rapid, strong, and tough adhesive properties. Mussel adhesion can be achieved by byssus, an exogenous structure that consists of a stem, a bundle of byssal threads, and byssal plaques at the end of each thread. At the adhesion plaque, particular adhesive proteins are secreted, allowing the plaque to anchor to wet surfaces via diverse surface interactions [1]. Mussel adhesive proteins (MAPs) consist of six-foot protein types, fp-1 to fp-6, and, interestingly, it was found that these ...