Temporal regulation of hydrogel stiffness through orthogonal enzymatic reactions

摘要

Conclusions: In summary, we have established a purely enzymatic gelation scheme with tunable initial crosslinking and temporal regulation of gel stiffness. The use of sequential enzymatic reactions, namely SrtA and MT, allows for dynamic tuning of primary and secondary crosslinking without the necessity of co-initiators and UV-light. In addition, SrtA and MT reactions yield no cytotoxic by-products, thereby making them advantageous, cytocompatible systems for studying cell processes. Future work will focus on utilizing this gelation and stiffening scheme to evaluate the role of dynamic matrix stiffening on regulating stem cell fate processes.