Abstract：
Whereas hydrogels created from synthetic polymers offer a high level of control over their stability and mechanical properties, their biomedical activity is typically limited. In contrast, biopolymers have evolved over billions of years to integrate a broad range of functionalities into a single design. Thus, biopolymeric hydrogels can show remarkable capabilities such as regulatory behavior, selective barrier properties, or antimicrobial effects. Still, despite their widespread use in numerous biomedical applications, achieving a meticulous control over the physical properties of macroscopic biopolymeric networks remains a challenge. Here, a macroscopic, DNA-crosslinked mucin hydrogel with tunable viscoelastic properties that responds to two types of triggers: temperature alterations and DNA displacement strands, is presented. As confirmed with bulk rheology and single particle tracking, the hybridized base pairs governing the stability of the hydrogel can be opened, thus allowing for a precise control over the hydrogel stiffness and even enabling a full gel-to-sol transition. As those DNA-crosslinked mucin hydrogels possess tunable mechanical properties and can be disintegrated on demand, they can not only be considered for controlled cargo release but may also serve as a role model for the development of smart biomedical materials in applications such as tissue engineering and wound healing.
摘要：
尽管由合成聚合物制成的水凝胶对其稳定性和机械性能提供了高度的控制，它们的生物医学活动通常是有限的。相比之下,生物聚合物已经进化了数十亿年，将广泛的功能整合到一个单一的设计中。因此，生物聚合物水凝胶可以表现出非凡的能力，如调节行为，选择性阻隔性能，或抗菌作用。尽管如此，尽管它们广泛用于许多生物医学应用，实现对宏观生物聚合物网络的物理性质的细致控制仍然是一个挑战。这里,我们提出了一个宏观的，具有可调粘弹性特性的DNA交联的粘蛋白水凝胶，可响应两种类型的触发因素：温度变化和DNA置换链。正如本体流变学和单颗粒示踪所证实的那样，可以打开控制水凝胶稳定性的杂交碱基对，从而允许对水凝胶刚度的精确控制,并且甚至实现完全的凝胶到溶胶的转变。由于这些DNA交联的粘蛋白水凝胶具有可调的机械性能，并且可以根据需要分解，它们不仅可以被考虑用于受控的货物释放，还可以作为智能生物医学材料在组织工程和伤口愈合等应用中的发展的榜样。本文受版权保护。保留所有权利。
