Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA; Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA.
Institute of Mechanical Engineering and Institute of Bioengineering, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, CH-1015, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Biomaterials. 2021 Jan;267:120497. doi: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2020.120497. Epub 2020 Oct 26.
Active biomaterials offer novel approaches to study mechanotransduction in mammalian cells. These material systems probe cellular responses by dynamically modulating their resistance to endogenous forces or applying exogenous forces on cells in a temporally controlled manner. Stimuli-responsive molecules, polymers, and nanoparticles embedded inside cytocompatible biopolymer networks transduce external signals such as light, heat, chemicals, and magnetic fields into changes in matrix elasticity (few kPa to tens of kPa) or forces (few pN to several μN) at the cell-material interface. The implementation of active biomaterials in mechanobiology has generated scientific knowledge and therapeutic potential relevant to a variety of conditions including but not limited to cancer metastasis, fibrosis, and tissue regeneration. We discuss the repertoire of cellular responses that can be studied using these platforms including receptor signaling as well as downstream events namely, cytoskeletal organization, nuclear shuttling of mechanosensitive transcriptional regulators, cell migration, and differentiation. We highlight recent advances in active biomaterials and comment on their future impact.
活性生物材料为研究哺乳动物细胞中的力转导提供了新的方法。这些材料系统通过动态调节其对内生力的阻力或以外源性方式在时间控制的方式下对细胞施加力来探测细胞的反应。嵌入细胞相容性生物聚合物网络中的刺激响应分子、聚合物和纳米颗粒将光、热、化学物质和磁场等外部信号转导为细胞-材料界面处基质弹性（几千帕到几十千帕）或力（几个皮牛顿到几微牛顿）的变化。在机械生物学中应用活性生物材料产生了与多种情况相关的科学知识和治疗潜力，包括但不限于癌症转移、纤维化和组织再生。我们讨论了可以使用这些平台研究的细胞反应的范围，包括受体信号以及下游事件，即细胞骨架组织、机械敏感转录调节剂的核穿梭、细胞迁移和分化。我们强调了活性生物材料的最新进展，并对其未来的影响进行了评论。
