Monday, August 20, 2012

Strain-Promoted Cross-Linking of PEG-Based Hydrogels via CopperFree Cycloaddition

Jukuan Zheng, Laura A. Smith Callahan, Jinkun Hao, Kai Guo, Chrys Wesdemiotis, R. A. Weiss, and Matthew L. Becke

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/mz3003775



The researchers showed crosslinking between a dibenzocyclooctynol-PEG complex with a triazide that was induced by an applied strain The gelation kinetics measured through rheology (on 8mm parallel plate at 10 rad/s and strain amplitude of 10%) showed the gels reached equilibrium values of modulus at 2.5 hours suggesting gelation was complete. A solvent trap was used to maintain hydration of the gels, which were shown to have 96.1% water at the end of the rheology studies. The plateau modulus was around 0.8 kPa, and through theory of rubber elasticity, a crosslink density of 8.6mol/m3 was calculated. Human mesenchymal stem cells were also viable after gel crosslinking as shown by a live-dead cell assay.

No comments:

Post a Comment