Sapre Aditya, Bhattacharyya Rik, Sen Ayusman
Department of Chemical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, United States.
Department of Chemistry, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, United States.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2024 Jul 31;16(30):40131-40138. doi: 10.1021/acsami.4c04930. Epub 2024 Jul 17.
The achievement of consistent and static chemical gradients is critically important in the study of diffusion and chemotaxis at the micro- and nanoscales. In this context, a number of groups have reported on hydrogel-based systems for generating concentration gradients. Here, we analyze the behavior of agarose and gelatin-based hydrogels in hybridization chambers of different heights. Our focus is on the issues that are caused by the presence of robust bulk fluid flows in such systems due to the solutes present in the hydrogel and/or the surrounding fluid. We describe the key insights derived from these experiments, offering practical guidelines for establishing gradients using hydrogel-based systems and make the community aware of different variables that can make the experiments nonreproducible and prone to misinterpretations.
在微纳尺度下研究扩散和趋化性时，实现一致且稳定的化学梯度至关重要。在此背景下，已有多个研究小组报道了基于水凝胶的浓度梯度生成系统。本文中，我们分析了不同高度杂交室中基于琼脂糖和明胶的水凝胶的行为。我们关注的是由于水凝胶和/或周围流体中存在溶质而在这类系统中产生强劲的大量流体流动所引发的问题。我们描述了从这些实验中获得的关键见解，为使用基于水凝胶的系统建立梯度提供实用指南，并让科学界了解可能导致实验不可重复且易于产生误解的不同变量。
