Agrawal Aditya, Chen Huiying, Kim Hojin, Zhu Bohan, Adetiba Oluwatomiyin, Miranda Andrea, Cristian Chipara Alin, Ajayan Pulickel M, Jacot Jeffrey G, Verduzco Rafael
Congenital Heart Surgery, Texas Children's Hospital, Houston, Texas 77030, United States.
ACS Macro Lett. 2016 Dec 20;5(12):1386-1390. doi: 10.1021/acsmacrolett.6b00554. Epub 2016 Nov 29.
Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) are unique among shape-responsive materials in that they exhibit large and reversible shape changes and can respond to a variety of stimuli. However, only a handful of studies have explored LCEs for biomedical applications. Here, we demonstrate that LCE nanocomposites (LCE-NCs) exhibit a fast and reversible electromechanical response and can be employed as dynamic substrates for cell culture. A two-step method for preparing conductive LCE-NCs is described, which produces materials that exhibit rapid (response times as fast at 0.6 s), large-amplitude (contraction by up to 30%), and fully reversible shape changes (stable to over 5000 cycles) under externally applied voltages (5-40 V). The electromechanical response of the LCE-NCs is tunable through variation of the electrical potential and LCE-NC composition. We utilize conductive LCE-NCs as responsive substrates to culture neonatal rat ventricular myocytes (NRVM) and find that NRVM remain viable on both stimulated and static LCE-NC substrates. These materials provide a reliable and simple route to materials that exhibit a fast, reversible, and large-amplitude electromechanical response.
液晶弹性体（LCEs）在形状响应材料中独树一帜，因为它们能呈现出巨大且可逆的形状变化，并且能对多种刺激做出响应。然而，仅有少数研究探索了LCEs在生物医学领域的应用。在此，我们证明了LCE纳米复合材料（LCE-NCs）展现出快速且可逆的机电响应，并且可用作细胞培养的动态基质。本文描述了一种制备导电LCE-NCs的两步法，该方法所制备的材料在外部施加电压（5 - 40 V）下呈现出快速（响应时间快至0.6 s）、大幅度（收缩高达30%）以及完全可逆的形状变化（稳定超过5000次循环）。LCE-NCs的机电响应可通过改变电势和LCE-NC组成来调节。我们利用导电LCE-NCs作为响应基质来培养新生大鼠心室肌细胞（NRVM），并发现NRVM在受刺激和静态的LCE-NC基质上均能保持存活。这些材料为制备具有快速、可逆且大幅度机电响应的材料提供了一条可靠且简便的途径。
