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What Is the Force-per-Molecule Inside a Biomaterial Having Randomly Oriented Units?

Joel NowitzkeIonel Popa
Published in: The journal of physical chemistry letters (2022)
Both synthetic and natural protein-based materials are made of randomly oriented cross-linked molecules. Here we introduce a coarse-grained approach to estimate the average force-per-molecule for materials made from globular proteins. Our approach has three steps: placement of molecules inside a unit volume, cross-linking, and trimming to remove the protein domains that do not participate to the force response. Following this procedure, we estimate the number of active domains per cross-section area, that allows for a direct calculation of the force-per-domain. Among the variables considered, we found that concentration was the most sensitive parameter. We then synthesized protein hydrogels made from BSA and polyprotein L and measured the stresses that these materials can withstand. We found that forces-per-molecules of up to 17 pN per domain can be obtained experimentally using protein hydrogels. Our approach represents an important step toward understanding the scaling of tension in biomaterials.
Keyphrases
  • single molecule
  • protein protein
  • amino acid
  • drug delivery
  • molecular dynamics
  • binding protein
  • tissue engineering
  • drug release
  • minimally invasive