Direct delivery of bioactive
substances to the sites of injury represents a key
issue for therapies based on regenerative medicine
and tissue repair [1]. Protein derived hydrogels
represent an interesting system for this purpose
because they possess several features that make
them suitable to this purpose. A method for
preparation of hydrogel matrices based on Human
Elastin-like Polypeptide (HELP) has been set up
[2]. HELPs are a family of elastin-like
recombinant biopolymers modeled after the most
regularly repeated domain in human tropoelastin,
retaining peculiar properties as self-assembling
and thermoresponsive behavior [3]. In this study
we assayed two elastolytic activities from different
sources to test their potential to specifically
degrade the HELP matrix.
