Key Laboratory of Intelligent Optical Sensing and Integration, National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructure, and Department of Physics, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China.
Department of Oral Implantology Nanjing Stomatological Hospital, Medical School of Nanjing University, Nanjing 210008, China.
J Biomed Nanotechnol. 2021 Feb 28;17(2):149-168. doi: 10.1166/jbn.2021.3026.
Similar to natural tissues, hydrogels contain abundant water, so they are considered as promising biomaterials for studying the influence of the mechanical properties of extracellular matrices (ECM) on various cell functions. In recent years, the growing research on cellular mechanical response has revealed that many cell functions, including cell spreading, migration, tumorigenesis and differentiation, are related to the mechanical properties of ECM. Therefore, how cells sense and respond to the extracellular mechanical environment has gained considerable attention. In these studies, hydrogels are widely used as the model system. Hydrogels of tunable stiffness, viscoelasticity, degradability, plasticity, and dynamical properties have been engineered to reveal how cells respond to specific mechanical features. In this review, we summarize recent process in this research direction and specifically focus on the influence of the mechanical properties of the ECM on cell functions, how cells sense and respond to the extracellular mechanical environment, and approaches to adjusting the stiffness of hydrogels.
类似于天然组织，水凝胶含有丰富的水分，因此它们被认为是研究细胞外基质（ECM）的机械性能对各种细胞功能影响的有前途的生物材料。近年来，对细胞机械响应的研究越来越多，揭示了许多细胞功能，包括细胞铺展、迁移、肿瘤发生和分化，都与 ECM 的机械性能有关。因此，细胞如何感知和响应细胞外的机械环境引起了相当大的关注。在这些研究中，水凝胶被广泛用作模型系统。人们已经设计出了具有可调硬度、粘弹性、可降解性、可塑性和动态特性的水凝胶，以揭示细胞如何对特定的机械特性做出响应。在这篇综述中，我们总结了这一研究方向的最新进展，并特别关注 ECM 的机械性能对细胞功能的影响、细胞如何感知和响应细胞外的机械环境以及调整水凝胶硬度的方法。
