Journal
ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE-INTERNATIONAL EDITION
Volume 58, Issue 29, Pages 9912-9916Publisher
WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201901989
Keywords
hydrogels; matrix mechanics; mechanobiology; photochemistry; signal transduction
Categories
Funding
- National Institutes of Health [RO1 HL132353, RO1 GM29090]
- AHA Predoctoral Fellowship [17PRE33661129]
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There is a growing interest in materials that can dynamically change their properties in the presence of cells to study mechanobiology. Herein, we exploit the 365 nm light mediated [4+ 4] photodimerization of anthracene groups to develop cytocompatible PEG-based hydrogels with tailorable initial moduli that can be further stiffened. A hydrogel formulation that can stiffen from 10 to 50 kPa, corresponding to the stiffness of a healthy and fibrotic heart, respectively, was prepared. This system was used to monitor the stiffnessdependent localization of NFAT, a downstream target of intracellular calcium signaling using a reporter in live cardiac fibroblasts ( CFbs). NFAT translocates to the nucleus of CFbs on stiffening hydrogels within 6 h, whereas it remains cytoplasmic when the CFbs are cultured on either 10 or 50 kPa static hydrogels. This finding demonstrates how dynamic changes in the mechanical properties of a material can reveal the kinetics of mechanoresponsive cell signaling pathways that may otherwise be missed in cells cultured on static substrates.
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