ArticleNature communications2021
Astral hydrogels mimic tissue mechanics by aster-aster interpenetration.
Article in Nature communications, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Bioenergetic-active hydrogel drives extracellular matrix synthesis for cartilage repair.Bioactive materials · 2025Article
- Elasticity-controlled jamming criticality in soft composite solids.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Recent Advances in Macroporous Hydrogels for Cell Behavior and Tissue Engineering.Gels (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Materials science and mechanosensitivity of living matter.Applied physics reviews · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Many soft tissues are compression-stiffening and extension-softening in response to axial strains, but common hydrogels are either inert (for ideal chains) or tissue-opposite (for semiflexible polymers). Herein, we report a class of astral hydrogels that are structurally distinct from tissues but mechanically tissue-like. Specifically, hierarchical self-assembly of amphiphilic gemini molecules produces radial asters with a common core and divergently growing, semiflexible ribbons; adjacent asters moderately interpenetrate each other via interlacement of their peripheral ribbons to form a gel network. Resembling tissues, the astral gels stiffen in compression and soften in extension with all the experimental data across different gel compositions collapsing onto a single master curve. We put forward a minimal model to reproduce the master curve quantitatively, underlying the determinant role of aster-aster interpenetration. Compression significantly expands the interpenetration region, during which the number of effective crosslinks is increased and the network strengthened, while extension does the opposite. Looking forward, we expect this unique mechanism of interpenetration to provide a fresh perspective for designing and constructing mechanically tissue-like materials.
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Registered trials
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