Indenting at the Microscale: Guidelines for Robust Mechanical Characterization of Alginate Microgels.

ABSTRACT: Microgels offer broad applications in bioengineering due to their customizable properties, supporting innovations in mechanobiology, tissue engineering, drug delivery, and cell therapy. This study focuses on characterizing ionically cross-linked alginate microgels using a nanoindentation technique, enabling precise assessment of their mechanical properties at the microscale. We report on the microfluidic fabrication of alginate microgels with varying sizes at different cross-linker concentrations and on the mechanical characterization of the resulting microgels in terms of Young's moduli as well as viscoelastic behavior. Measurements conducted using dynamic nanoindentation reveal that microgel elasticity is strongly influenced by the ionic composition of the surrounding media, in particula

SUBMITTER: Harder P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11891838 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature