Dynamic Gelatin Hydrogels Crosslinked by Dithiolane-Norbornene Click Chemistry.

ABSTRACT: Hydrogels prepared from gelatin are ideal for mimicking the extracellular matrix (ECM) owing to their inherent cell-adhesive and protease-labile peptide sequences. While gelatin is highly water-soluble, it does not form the triple-helical structure. As a result, physically crosslinked gelatin-based hydrogels are only stable at low temperatures, precluding their use in 3D cell culture. Gelatin-methacryloyl (GelMA) and gelatin-norbornene (GelNB) have been developed to enable the stable crosslinking of gelatin-based hydrogels via chain-growth or step-growth photopolymerization. However, most gelatin-based hydrogels lack dynamically tunable properties unless macromers with dynamically crosslinkable motifs are used. Here, we integrate GelNB with dithiolane-containing crosslinker poly(ethylene g

SUBMITTER: Afolabi FO 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12868403 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature