Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, 80303, United States; BioFrontiers Institute, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, 80303, United States; The UQ Centre in Stem Cell Ageing and Regenerative Engineering (StemCARE), Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD, 4072, Australia.
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, 80303, United States; BioFrontiers Institute, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, 80303, United States.
Biomaterials. 2019 Dec;223:119430. doi: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2019.119430. Epub 2019 Aug 13.
Cells are capable of sensing the differences in elastic and viscous properties (i.e., the 'viscoelasticity') of their tissue microenvironment and responding accordingly by changing their transcriptional activity and modifying their behaviors. When designing viscoelastic materials to mimic the mechanical properties of native tissue niches, it is important to consider the timescales over which cells probe their microenvironment, as the response of a viscoelastic material to an imposed stress or strain is timescale dependent. Although the timescale of cellular mechano-sensing is currently unknown, hydrogel substrates with tunable viscoelastic spectra can allow one to probe the cellular response to timescale dependent mechanical properties. Here, we report on a cytocompatible and viscoelastic hydrogel culture system with reversible boronate ester cross-links, formed from pendant boronic acid and vicinal diol moieties, where the equilibrium kinetics of esterification were leveraged to tune the viscoelastic spectrum. We found that viscoelasticity increased as a function of the boronic acid and vicinal diol concentration, and also increased with decreasing cross-linker concentration, where the maximal loss tangent achieved with this system was 0.55 at 0.1 rad s. Additionally, we found that the cis-vicinal diols configuration altered the viscoelastic spectra, where a tan δ peak occurred at ~1 rad s for hydrogels functionalized with boronic acid, while an additional peak formed at ≥10 rad s for hydrogels functionalized with both boronic acid and cis-vic-diols. In experiments with NIH-3T3 fibroblasts cultured on these hydrogels, the projected cell area and nuclear area, focal adhesion tension, and subcellular localization of YAP/TAZ were all found to be lower for cells cultured on the viscoelastic hydrogels compared to elastic hydrogels with a similar storage modulus. Despite these differences, there was not a statistically significant relationship between the frequency dependent viscoelastic material properties characterized in this study and cellular morphologies, focal adhesion tension, or the subcellular localization of YAP. While these results demonstrate that mechanotransduction pathways are affected by viscoelasticity, they also suggest that these mechanotransduction pathways are not particularly sensitive to the frequency dependent viscoelastic material properties from 0.1 to 10 rad s.
细胞能够感知其组织微环境中弹性和粘性特性(即“粘弹性”)的差异,并通过改变转录活性和改变行为来相应地做出反应。在设计粘弹性材料以模拟天然组织龛的机械特性时,考虑细胞探测其微环境的时间尺度非常重要,因为粘弹性材料对施加的应力或应变的响应是时间依赖性的。虽然细胞机械感觉的时间尺度目前尚不清楚,但具有可调粘弹性谱的水凝胶基底可以允许人们探测细胞对时间依赖性机械特性的响应。在这里,我们报告了一种具有细胞相容性和粘弹性的水凝胶培养系统,其具有可逆的硼酸酯交联,由挂接硼酸和顺式邻二醇部分形成,其中酯化的平衡动力学被利用来调节粘弹性谱。我们发现粘弹性随着硼酸和顺式邻二醇浓度的增加而增加,并且随着交联剂浓度的降低而增加,该系统的最大损耗角正切值在 0.1 rad/s 时达到 0.55。此外,我们发现顺式邻二醇构型改变了粘弹性谱,其中具有硼酸功能化的水凝胶在约 1 rad/s 处出现 tan δ 峰,而具有硼酸和顺式邻二醇功能化的水凝胶在≥10 rad/s 处形成附加峰。在 NIH-3T3 成纤维细胞在这些水凝胶上培养的实验中,与具有相似储能模量的弹性水凝胶相比,培养在粘弹性水凝胶上的细胞的投影细胞面积和核面积、焦点粘附张力以及 YAP/TAZ 的亚细胞定位均较低。尽管存在这些差异,但在本研究中表征的频率相关粘弹性材料特性与细胞形态、焦点粘附张力或 YAP 的亚细胞定位之间没有统计学上显著的关系。虽然这些结果表明机械转导途径受到粘弹性的影响,但它们也表明这些机械转导途径对 0.1 到 10 rad/s 范围内的频率相关粘弹性材料特性不是特别敏感。