Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructure, Key Laboratory of Intelligent Optical Sensing and Manipulation, Ministry of Education, Department of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China.
College of Life and Health Sciences, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China.
Int J Mol Sci. 2022 Mar 11;23(6):3032. doi: 10.3390/ijms23063032.
Strain-stiffening properties derived from biological tissue have been widely observed in biological hydrogels and are essential in mimicking natural tissues. Although strain-stiffening has been studied in various protein-based hydrogels, effective approaches for tuning the strain-stiffening properties of protein hydrogels have rarely been explored. Here, we demonstrated a new method to tune the strain-stiffening amplitudes of protein hydrogels. By adjusting the surface charge of proteins inside the hydrogel using negatively/positively charged molecules, the strain-stiffening amplitudes could be quantitively regulated. The strain-stiffening of the protein hydrogels could even be enhanced 5-fold under high deformations, while the bulk property, recovery ability and biocompatibility remained almost unchanged. The tuning of strain-stiffening amplitudes using different molecules or in different protein hydrogels was further proved to be feasible. We anticipate that surface charge adjustment of proteins in hydrogels represents a general principle to tune the strain-stiffening property and can find wide applications in regulating the mechanical behaviors of protein-based hydrogels.
从生物组织中得到的应变硬化特性在生物水凝胶中得到了广泛的观察，对于模拟天然组织至关重要。尽管在各种基于蛋白质的水凝胶中已经研究了应变硬化，但很少探索用于调整蛋白质水凝胶应变硬化特性的有效方法。在这里，我们展示了一种调整蛋白质水凝胶应变硬化幅度的新方法。通过使用带负电荷/正电荷的分子调整水凝胶内部蛋白质的表面电荷，可以定量调节应变硬化幅度。在高变形下，蛋白质水凝胶的应变硬化甚至可以增强 5 倍，而其整体性质、恢复能力和生物相容性几乎保持不变。使用不同的分子或在不同的蛋白质水凝胶中调节应变硬化幅度也被证明是可行的。我们预计水凝胶中蛋白质表面电荷的调整代表了一种调整应变硬化特性的通用原理，并可以在调节基于蛋白质的水凝胶的机械行为方面得到广泛应用。
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