Progressive stiffening of the extracellular matrix (ECM) is observed in tissue development as well as in pathologies such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and fibrotic disease. However, methods to recapitulate this phenomenon face critical limitations. Here, we present a poly(ethylene glycol)-based peptide-functionalized ECM-mimetic hydrogel platform capable of facile, user-controlled dynamic stiffening. This platform leverages supramolecular interactions between inverse-electron demand Diels-Alder tetrazine-norbornene click products (TNCP) to create pendant moieties that undergo non-covalent crosslinking, stiffening a pre-existing network formed thiol-ene click chemistry over the course of 6 h. Pendant TNCP moieties have a concentration-dependent effect on gel stiffness while still being cytocompatible and permissive of cell-mediated gel degradation. The robustness of this approach as well as its simplicity and ease of translation give it broad potential utility.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.biomac.1c00485 | DOI Listing |
PNAS Nexus
January 2025
Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22908, USA.
Investigating the molecular, cellular, and tissue-level changes caused by disease, and the effects of pharmacological treatments across these biological scales, necessitates the use of multiscale computational modeling in combination with experimentation. Many diseases dynamically alter the tissue microenvironment in ways that trigger microvascular network remodeling, which leads to the expansion or regression of microvessel networks. When microvessels undergo remodeling in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), functional gas exchange is impaired and lung function declines.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMaterials (Basel)
December 2024
Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Lublin University of Technology, Nadbystrzycka 40 Street, 20-618 Lublin, Poland.
In recent years, global climate change has caused worldwide trends in science and industry toward a focus on the development of modern technologies with reduced environmental impact, including reduced CO emissions into the atmosphere. The technology for producing asphalt mixtures (AM) at lower temperatures (WMA-warm asphalt mix) using zeolite materials for the bitumen foaming process fits perfectly into these trends. Therefore, towards the development of this technology, the research presented in this paper presents the modification process of zeolite NaP1 from fly ash with silanes of different chemical structures (TEOS, MPTS, TESPT) and their application in the foaming process of bitumen modified with polymers (PMB 45/80-55).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPolymers (Basel)
November 2024
Department of Chemistry, Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU), GSP-1, 1-3 Leninskiye Gory, 119991 Moscow, Russia.
Brush-like graft copolymers (A-g-B), in which linear A-blocks are randomly grafted onto the backbone of a brush-like B-block, exhibit intense strain-stiffening and high mechanical strength on par with load-bearing biological tissues such as skin and blood vessels. To elucidate molecular mechanisms underlying this tissue-mimetic behavior, in situ synchrotron X-ray scattering was measured during uniaxial stretching of bottlebrush- and comb-like graft copolymers with varying densities of poly(dimethyl siloxane) and poly(isobutylene) side chains. In an undeformed state, these copolymers revealed a single interference peak corresponding to the average spacing between the domains of linear A-blocks arranged in a disordered, liquid-like configuration.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAcc Chem Res
December 2024
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado 80303, United States.
ConspectusSynthetic extracellular matrix (ECM) engineering is a highly interdisciplinary field integrating materials and polymer science and engineering, chemistry, cell biology, and medicine to develop innovative strategies to investigate and control cell-matrix interactions. Cellular microenvironments are complex and highly dynamic, changing in response to injury and disease. To capture some of these critical dynamics , biomaterial matrices have been developed with tailorable properties that can be modulated in the presence of cells.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNano Lett
December 2024
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea.
Twisted van der Waals heterostructures have led to emerging layer-dependent correlated physics in moiré potentials. While optoelectronic controls over interlayer electronic coupling have been reported, the concomitant interlayer vibration has not yet been controlled. Here, we report experimental evidence of ultrafast optical control over the amplitude and oscillation period of interlayer breathing phonons in WSe/WS heterobilayers.
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