Clickable, hybrid hydrogels as tissue culture platforms for modeling chronic pulmonary diseases in vitro

摘要

The determination of primary amine content on pulmonary dECM is achievable, and the values are comparable to those resulting from Col I, which is expected since it is a significant component of lung ECM. The large decrease in amine content, and rise in thiol content on the collagen demonstrates the ability to convert these amines into free thiol groups that will be useful for the thiol-Michael click reaction that occurs when crosslinking with PEGαMA to form a hydrogel. Future work will focus on the thiolation of dECM and the preparation of hybrid PEGaMA and dECM hydrogels. The ability to manipulate the mechanical properties through the synthetic component while also maintaining the biological components of the lung dECM will provide an advantageous in vitro model that will allow for a better platform to investigate the mechanisms behind PH.