Tunable Viscoelasticity of Alginate Hydrogels via Serial Autoclaving.

ABSTRACT: Alginate hydrogels are widely used as biomaterials for cell culture and tissue engineering due to their biocompatibility and tunable mechanical properties. Reducing alginate molecular weight is an effective strategy for modulating hydrogel viscoelasticity and stress relaxation behavior, which can significantly impact cell spreading and fate. However, current methods like gamma irradiation to produce low molecular weight alginates suffer from high cost and limited accessibility. Here, a facile and cost-effective approach to reduce alginate molecular weight in a highly controlled manner using serial autoclaving is presented. Increasing the number of autoclave cycles results in proportional reductions in intrinsic viscosity, hydrodynamic radius, and molecular weight of the polymer while maint

SUBMITTER: Moheimani H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11671294 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature