Stepwise Stiffening/Softening of and Cell Recovery from Reversibly Formulated Hydrogel Double Networks.

ABSTRACT: Biomechanical contributions of the ECM underpin cell growth and proliferation, differentiation, signal transduction, and other fate decisions. As such, biomaterials whose mechanics can be spatiotemporally altered - particularly in a reversible manner - are extremely valuable for studying these mechanobiological phenomena. Herein, we introduce a poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG)-based hydrogel model consisting of two interpenetrating step-growth networks that are independently formed via largely orthogonal bioorthogonal chemistries and sequentially degraded with distinct bacterial transpeptidases, affording reversibly tunable stiffness ranges that span healthy and diseased soft tissues (e.g., 500 Pa - 6 kPa) alongside terminal cell recovery for pooled and/or single-cell analysis in a near "biolog

SUBMITTER: Kopyeva I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11030224 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature