Tracking Mechanical Stress and Cell Migration with Inexpensive Polymer Thin-Film Sensors.

ABSTRACT: Polydiacetylene (PDA) Langmuir films are well known for their blue to red chromatic transitions in response to a variety of stimuli, including UV light, heat, bio-molecule bindings and mechanical stress. In this work, we detail the ability to tune PDA Langmuir films to exhibit discrete chromatic transitions in response to applied mechanical stress. Normal and shear-induced transitions were quantified using the Surface Forces Apparatus and established to be binary and tunable as a function of film formation conditions. Both monomer alkyl tail length and metal cations were used to manipulate the chromatic transition force threshold to enable discrete force sensing from ~50 to ~500 nN μm^-2 for normal loading and ~2 to ~40 nN μm^-2 for shear-induced transitions, which are

SUBMITTER: Finney TJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9937716 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature