| abstract |
Proteinaceous polymers having repetitive units from naturally occurring structural proteins are employed as backbones for functionalities for crosslinking to provide strongly adherent tissue adhesives and sealants. Particularly, block copolymers having repeating units of elastin and fibroin are employed having lysine substitutions in spaced apart units, where the amino group can be crosslinked using difunctional crosslinking agents. The protein polymer contains at least 40 weight percent of repetitive units of 3 to 30 amino acids of at least one naturally occurring structural protein and at least two functional groups capable of reacting with a crosslinking agent to form a strongly adherent adhesive composition for bonding together separated tissue or for sealing tissue defects. A preferred adhesive composition contains glutaraldehyde or polymethylene diisocyanate and a protein block copolymer of at least 30 kD containing at least 70 weight percent of repetitive units of Gly-Ala-Gly-Ala-Gly-Ser and Gly-Val-Gly-Val-Pro, where in at least two units an amino acid is substituted with one of lysine or arginine, and the copolymer has a lysine and arginine equivalent weight in the range of 3 to 15 kD. The protein polymer is produced by recombinant DNA technology, and a kit may be formed containing the crosslinking agent and protein polymer. |