Abstract
Hydrogels are important platform materials for in vitro cellular studies. Mechanistic studies on durotaxis, the directional movement of a cell affected by a spatial gradient of stiffness of the underlying substrate, requires materials such as polyacrylamide, polyethylene glycol, or PDMS, in which the stiffness can be controlled in a spatiotemporal manner. Here, we describe the synthesis of an o-nitrobenzyl-based photocleavable cross-linker and its incorporation into a polyacrylamide hydrogel to render it photoresponsive. Precise control over the physical properties of the gel allows observation of glioblastoma durotaxis under surface stiffness conditions relevant to the actual brain environment.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Methods in Molecular Biology |
| Publisher | Humana Press Inc. |
| Pages | 133-153 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2023 |
Publication series
| Name | Methods in Molecular Biology |
|---|---|
| Volume | 2600 |
| ISSN (Print) | 1064-3745 |
| ISSN (Electronic) | 1940-6029 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by NIH grant R35 GM141853 to MDD and NIH grants U54 CA210190 and R01 CA172986 to DJO. We thank Aleksi Isomursu for generating the plot used here for Figure 7.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
Keywords
- Durotaxis
- ECM micropatterning
- Fibronectin
- Mechanotransduction
- Photocleavable cross-linker
- Photoresponsive hydrogel
- Polyacrylamide
- Stiffness pattern
- U-251 glioblastoma
- o-nitrobenzyl
- Extracellular Matrix/metabolism
- Polyethylene Glycols/analysis
- Humans
- Mechanotransduction, Cellular/physiology
- Hydrogels/chemistry
- Glioblastoma/metabolism
PubMed: MeSH publication types
- Journal Article
- Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural