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Microstructural and mechanical differences between digested collagen-fibrin co-gels and pure collagen and fibrin gels.

ABSTRACT: Collagen and fibrin are important extracellular matrix (ECM) components in the body, providing structural integrity to various tissues. These biopolymers are also common scaffolds used in tissue engineering. This study investigated how co-gelation of collagen and fibrin affected the properties of each individual protein network. Collagen-fibrin co-gels were cast and subsequently digested using either plasmin or collagenase; the microstructure and mechanical behavior of the resulting networks were then compared with the respective pure collagen or fibrin gels of the same protein concentration. The morphologies of the collagen networks were further analyzed via three-dimensional network reconstruction from confocal image z-stacks. Both collagen and fibrin exhibited a decrease in mean fiber diameter when formed in co-gels compared with the pure gels. This microstructural change was accompanied by an increased failure strain and decreased tangent modulus for both collagen and fibrin following selective digestion of the co-gels. In addition, analysis of the reconstructed collagen networks indicated the presence of very long fibers and the clustering of fibrils, resulting in very high connectivities for collagen networks formed in co-gels.

SUBMITTER: Lai VK

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3462241 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Microstructural and mechanical differences between digested collagen-fibrin co-gels and pure collagen and fibrin gels.

Lai Victor K VK Frey Christina R CR Kerandi Allan M AM Lake Spencer P SP Tranquillo Robert T RT Barocas Victor H VH

Acta biomaterialia 20120722 11

Collagen and fibrin are important extracellular matrix (ECM) components in the body, providing structural integrity to various tissues. These biopolymers are also common scaffolds used in tissue engineering. This study investigated how co-gelation of collagen and fibrin affected the properties of each individual protein network. Collagen-fibrin co-gels were cast and subsequently digested using either plasmin or collagenase; the microstructure and mechanical behavior of the resulting networks wer ...[more]

PMID: 22828381

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Project description:Cellularized collagen gels are a common model in tissue engineering, but the relationship between the microstructure and bulk mechanical properties is only partially understood. Multiphoton microscopy (MPM) is an ideal non-invasive tool for examining collagen microstructure, cellularity and crosslink content in these gels. In order to identify robust image parameters that characterize microstructural determinants of the bulk elastic modulus, we performed serial MPM and mechanical tests on acellular and cellularized (normal human lung fibroblasts) collagen hydrogels, before and after glutaraldehyde crosslinking. Following gel contraction over 16 days, cellularized collagen gel content approached that of native connective tissues (?200 mg ml?¹). Young's modulus (E) measurements from acellular collagen gels (range 0.5-12 kPa) exhibited a power-law concentration dependence (range 3-9 mg ml?¹) with exponents from 2.1 to 2.2, similar to other semiflexible biopolymer networks such as fibrin and actin. In contrast, cellularized collagen gel stiffness (range 0.5-27 kPa) produced concentration-dependent exponents of 0.7 uncrosslinked and 1.1 crosslinked (range ?5-200 mg ml?¹). The variation in E of cellularized collagen hydrogels can be explained by a power-law dependence on robust image parameters: either the second harmonic generation (SHG) and two-photon fluorescence (TPF) (matrix component) skewness (R²=0.75, exponents of -1.0 and -0.6, respectively); or alternatively the SHG and TPF (matrix component) speckle contrast (R²=0.83, exponents of -0.7 and -1.8, respectively). Image parameters based on the cellular component of TPF signal did not improve the fits. The concentration dependence of E suggests enhanced stress relaxation in cellularized vs. acellular gels. SHG and TPF image skewness and speckle contrast from cellularized collagen gels can predict E by capturing mechanically relevant information on collagen fiber, cell and crosslink density.

Dataset Information

Microstructural and mechanical differences between digested collagen-fibrin co-gels and pure collagen and fibrin gels.

Publications

Microstructural and mechanical differences between digested collagen-fibrin co-gels and pure collagen and fibrin gels.

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