Live Cells Process Exogenous Peptide as Fibronectin Fibrillogenesis In Vivo

The human body is one of the most sophisticated material systems. It is still a considerable challenge to biomimic the "life-design" process to construct a part of "life" in vivo. Herein, we mimicked the natural fibronectin (FN) fibrillogenesis system using ligand-receptor interaction-induced self-assembly to construct in situ artificial fibrous FN in vivo, based on exogenous FN mimic peptide (FNMP). We performed the in vivo study with a tumor-bearing mouse model, to which the particle formulated FNMP raw materials were delivered with high efficiency to the tumor site through intravenous (iv) administration. In the tumor, the presence of overexpressed integrin receptors on the cell surface induced the self-assembly of the FNMP into fibrous structures, thereby, creating an artificial fibrous FN. However, the FNMP-based artificial fibrous FN showed different biological functionality from the natural fibrous FN, inhibiting the growth and migration of cells, making our constructed FN able to inhibit tumor growth, invasion, and metastasis. Thus, this study opens an avenue for the precise construction of biomimetic materials for in vivo biomedical applications.