Elastic, silk-cardiac extracellular matrix hydrogels exhibit time-dependent stiffening that modulates cardiac fibroblast response.

ABSTRACT: Heart failure is the leading cause of death in the United States and rapidly becoming the leading cause of death worldwide. While pharmacological treatments can reduce progression to heart failure following myocardial infarction, there still exists a need for new therapies that promote better healing postinjury for a more functional cardiac repair and methods to understand how the changes to tissue mechanical properties influence cell phenotype and function following injury. To address this need, we have optimized a silk-based hydrogel platform containing cardiac tissue-derived extracellular matrix (cECM). These silk-cECM hydrogels have tunable mechanical properties, as well as rate-controllable hydrogel stiffening over time. In vitro, silk-cECM scaffolds led to enhanced cardiac fibroblast

SUBMITTER: Stoppel WL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5805141 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature