Tunable Hydrogels for External Manipulation of Cellular Microenvironments through Controlled Photodegradation

摘要: Hydrogels provide a unique environment for three-dimensionalcell culture, but typically, the material properties are fixed uponformation. Given growing interest in understanding howmaterialmicroenvironmentsinfluencecellularfunctions,numer-ous approaches have emerged to control not only initialbiochemicalandbiophysicalpropertiesofgels,butalsohowtheseproperties change with degradation. While these strategies allowthe synthesis of hydrogels predictable degradation profilesand property changes, system that allows externalmanipulation cell-laden gel at any point intime or space would fill niche. For example, such cellculture allow real-time manipulation theextracellular microenvironment and simultaneous monitoringof cellular processes three-dimensional culture. In thiscontribution, photocleavable linkers were integrated into thecrosslinks poly(ethylene glycol)-based (PEG) hydrogel,allowing network structure be tuned exogeneously andpredictably irradiation under cytocompatible conditions.Such will enable new opportunities testhypotheses about how precise variations local gelenvironment direct important functions, as processextension, migration, mechanotransduction.There is development asa platform encapsulating cells their application fieldsranging from tissue engineering cellculture.