Institute for Medicine and Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, 3340 Smith Walk, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA.
Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 421 Curie Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA.
Nat Commun. 2018 Jan 31;9(1):449. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-02906-9.
The mechanical properties of extracellular matrices can control the function of cells. Studies of cellular responses to biomimetic soft materials have been largely restricted to hydrogels and elastomers that have stiffness values independent of time and extent of deformation, so the substrate stiffness can be unambiguously related to its effect on cells. Real tissues, however, often have loss moduli that are 10 to 20% of their elastic moduli and behave as viscoelastic solids. The response of cells to a time-dependent viscous loss is largely uncharacterized because appropriate viscoelastic materials are lacking for quantitative studies. Here we report the synthesis of soft viscoelastic solids in which the elastic and viscous moduli can be independently tuned to produce gels with viscoelastic properties that closely resemble those of soft tissues. Systematic alteration of the hydrogel viscosity demonstrates the time dependence of cellular mechanosensing and the influence of viscous dissipation on cell phenotype.
细胞外基质的力学性能可以控制细胞的功能。对仿生软材料的细胞响应的研究主要局限于具有与时间和变形程度无关的刚度值的水凝胶和弹性体，因此可以明确地将基底刚度与其对细胞的影响联系起来。然而，真正的组织通常具有损失模量，其弹性模量的 10%到 20%，并且表现为粘弹性固体。由于缺乏用于定量研究的合适的粘弹性材料，因此细胞对时变粘性损失的响应在很大程度上尚未得到描述。在这里，我们报告了软粘弹性固体的合成，其中弹性和粘性模量可以独立调节，以产生具有类似于软组织的粘弹性特性的凝胶。系统地改变水凝胶的粘度证明了细胞机械感受器的时间依赖性以及粘性耗散对细胞表型的影响。
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