Amdursky Nadav, Mazo Manuel M, Thomas Michael R, Humphrey Eleanor J, Puetzer Jennifer L, St-Pierre Jean-Philippe, Skaalure Stacey C, Richardson Robert M, Terracciano Cesare M, Stevens Molly M
Department of Materials, Department of Bioengineering and Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Imperial College Lodon, London, SW7 2AZ, UK.
National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial Centre for Translational and Experimental Medicine, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2AZ, UK.
J Mater Chem B. 2018 Sep 21;6(35):5604-5612. doi: 10.1039/C8TB01014E. Epub 2018 Aug 23.
Hydrogels are promising materials for mimicking the extra-cellular environment. Here, we present a simple methodology for the formation of a free-standing viscoelastic hydrogel from the abundant and low cost protein serum albumin. We show that the mechanical properties of the hydrogel exhibit a complicated behaviour as a function of the weight fraction of the protein component. We further use X-ray scattering to shed light on the mechanism of gelation from the formation of a fibrillary network at low weight fractions to interconnected aggregates at higher weight fractions. Given the match between our hydrogel elasticity and that of the myocardium, we investigated its potential for supporting cardiac cells . Interestingly, these hydrogels support the formation of several layers of myocytes and significantly promote the maintenance of a native-like gene expression profile compared to those cultured on glass. When confronted with a multicellular ventricular cell preparation, the hydrogels can support macroscopically contracting cardiac-like tissues with a distinct cell arrangement, and form mm-long vascular-like structures. We envisage that our simple approach for the formation of an elastic substrate from an abundant protein makes the hydrogel a compelling biomedical material candidate for a wide range of cell types.
水凝胶是用于模拟细胞外环境的有前景的材料。在此，我们展示了一种从丰富且低成本的蛋白质血清白蛋白形成独立粘弹性水凝胶的简单方法。我们表明，水凝胶的力学性能作为蛋白质组分重量分数的函数呈现出复杂的行为。我们进一步利用X射线散射来阐明凝胶化机制，即从低重量分数下的纤维状网络形成到高重量分数下的相互连接的聚集体形成。鉴于我们的水凝胶弹性与心肌弹性相匹配，我们研究了其支持心脏细胞的潜力。有趣的是，与在玻璃上培养的细胞相比，这些水凝胶支持多层心肌细胞的形成，并显著促进维持类似天然的基因表达谱。当面对多细胞心室细胞制剂时，水凝胶可以支持具有独特细胞排列的宏观收缩性类心脏组织，并形成毫米长的血管样结构。我们设想，我们从丰富蛋白质形成弹性基质的简单方法使水凝胶成为适用于广泛细胞类型的引人注目的生物医学材料候选物。
