Self-Assembling Gelatin-Curdlan Fibril Hydrogels for Oriented Neural Cell Growth.
Minting LiangQiuying LiuQunjie ChenYanting WuChao-Xi WuYi-Fei WangPublished in: ACS applied materials & interfaces (2024)
The ex vivo replication of the highly helical and fibril structures of load-bearing soft tissue is a challenging goal for the study of hydrogels. Inspired by nature, we prepared tissue-like physical gels based on curdlan and gelatin by self-assembly. The hybrid gels have a flexible fibril-matrix architecture, and the fibril orientation is highly tunable. The tensile strength of the gels can be tuned from ∼1.1 to ∼16.5 MPa. The coil-helix transition and nanofibril formation process in the self-assembly system was thoroughly investigated. These helical gels exhibit excellent cell compatibility, which supports adhesion and oriented growth of neural cells. Furthermore, the oriented nanofibrils in the gel are found to be associated with an upregulated expression of regeneration-related genes like N-cadherin (Cdh2) and neural growth factor (NGF). Owing to the strength and biomimetic structure, these gels have great potential in tissue engineering applications.
Keyphrases
- tissue engineering
- growth factor
- hyaluronic acid
- soft tissue
- stem cells
- poor prognosis
- induced apoptosis
- drug delivery
- physical activity
- mental health
- single cell
- cell therapy
- escherichia coli
- cell migration
- cell cycle arrest
- long non coding rna
- transcription factor
- binding protein
- staphylococcus aureus
- cell proliferation
- pseudomonas aeruginosa
- risk assessment
- atomic force microscopy