Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Forget A
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3740890 | biostudies-other | 2013 Aug
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other
Forget Aurelien A Christensen Jon J Lüdeke Steffen S Kohler Esther E Tobias Simon S Matloubi Maziar M Thomann Ralf R Shastri V Prasad VP
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20130725 32
Mechanical aspects of the cellular environment can influence cell function, and in this context hydrogels can serve as an instructive matrix. Here we report that physicochemical properties of hydrogels derived from polysaccharides (agarose, κ-carrageenan) having an α-helical backbone can be tailored by inducing a switch in the secondary structure from α-helix to β-sheet through carboxylation. This enables the gel modulus to be tuned over four orders of magnitude (G' 6 Pa-3.6 × 10(4) Pa) independ ...[more]