Babiak Paulina M, Battistoni Carly M, Cahya Leonard, Athreya Rithika, Minnich Jason, Panitch Alyssa, Liu Julie C
Davidson School of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA.
Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA.
Macromol Biosci. 2024 Dec;24(12):e2400280. doi: 10.1002/mabi.202400280. Epub 2024 Oct 20.
Collagen (Col) is commonly used as a natural biomaterial for biomedical applications. Although Col I is the most prevalent col type employed, many collagen types work together in vivo to confer function and biological activity. Thus, blending collagen types can better recapitulate many native environments. This work investigates how hydrogel properties can be tuned through blending collagen types (col I/II and col I/III) and by varying polymerization temperatures. Col I/II results in poorly developed fibril networks, which softened the gels, especially at lower polymerization temperatures. Conversely, col I/III hydrogels exhibit well-connected fibril networks with localized areas of fine fibrils and result in stiffer hydrogels. A decreased molecular mass recovery rate is observed in blended hydrogels. The altered fibril morphologies, mechanical properties, and biological signals of the blended gels can be leveraged to alter cell responses and can be used as models for different tissue types (e.g., healthy vs fibrotic tissue). Furthermore, the biomimetic hydrogel properties are a tool that can be used to modulate the transport of drugs, nutrients, and wastes in tissue engineering applications.
胶原蛋白（Col）通常用作生物医学应用的天然生物材料。尽管I型胶原蛋白是使用最普遍的胶原类型，但许多胶原类型在体内协同作用以赋予功能和生物活性。因此，混合不同类型的胶原蛋白可以更好地模拟许多天然环境。这项工作研究了如何通过混合胶原蛋白类型（I型/II型和I型/III型）以及改变聚合温度来调节水凝胶的性质。I型/II型胶原蛋白导致原纤维网络发育不良，这使凝胶变软，尤其是在较低的聚合温度下。相反，I型/III型胶原蛋白水凝胶表现出连接良好的原纤维网络，有局部细纤维区域，并且形成更硬的水凝胶。在混合水凝胶中观察到分子量回收率降低。混合凝胶改变的原纤维形态、机械性能和生物信号可用于改变细胞反应，并可用作不同组织类型（例如，健康组织与纤维化组织）的模型。此外，仿生水凝胶特性是一种可用于调节组织工程应用中药物、营养物质和废物运输的工具。
