Mimicking Active Biopolymer Networks with a Synthetic Hydrogel

Strain stiffening in synthetic and biopolymer networks.

Strain-stiffening behavior common to biopolymer networks is difficult to reproduce in synthetic networks. Physically associating synthetic polymer networks can be an exception to this rule and can demonstrate strain-stiffening behavior at relatively low values of strain. Here, the stiffening behavior of model elastic networks of physically associating triblock copolymers is characterized by she...

Reinforcing biopolymer hydrogels with ionic-covalent entanglement hydrogel microspheres

Microscopic hydrogel spheres can be used to improve the mechanical properties of conventional hydrogels. We prepared ionic-covalent entanglement (ICE) hydrogel microspheres of calcium cross-linked gellan gum and genipin cross-linked gelatin using a water-in-oil emulsion-based processing technique. The method was optimized to produce microspheres with number average diameter 4 ± 1 μm. These ICE ...

Bridging the Synthetic and Biopolymer Worlds

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Mimicking of synthetic vowels

Biopolymer Networks and Cellular Mechanosensing

Cells and tissues are mechanical as well as biochemical machines, and cellular response to mechanical cues can have as large an influence on structure and function as chemical signals. The mechanical properties of cells are largely determined by networks of semiflexible polymers forming the cytoskeleton, which has viscoelastic properties that differ in important ways from the viscoelasticity of...