Transformation of hard pollen into soft matter

Teng-Fei Fan, Soohyun Park, Qian Shi, Xingyu Zhang, Qimin Liu, Yoohyun Song, Hokyun Chin, Mohammed Shahrudin Bin Ibrahim, Natalia Mokrzecka, Yun Yang, Hua Li (), Juha Song (), Subra Suresh () and Nam-Joon Cho ()
Additional contact information
Teng-Fei Fan: Nanyang Technological University
Soohyun Park: Nanyang Technological University
Qian Shi: Nanyang Technological University
Xingyu Zhang: Nanyang Technological University
Qimin Liu: Nanyang Technological University
Yoohyun Song: Nanyang Technological University
Hokyun Chin: Nanyang Technological University
Mohammed Shahrudin Bin Ibrahim: Nanyang Technological University
Natalia Mokrzecka: Nanyang Technological University
Yun Yang: Nanyang Technological University
Hua Li: Nanyang Technological University
Juha Song: Nanyang Technological University
Subra Suresh: Nanyang Technological University
Nam-Joon Cho: Nanyang Technological University

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Pollen’s practically-indestructible shell structure has long inspired the biomimetic design of organic materials. However, there is limited understanding of how the mechanical, chemical, and adhesion properties of pollen are biologically controlled and whether strategies can be devised to manipulate pollen beyond natural performance limits. Here, we report a facile approach to transform pollen grains into soft microgel by remodeling pollen shells. Marked alterations to the pollen substructures led to environmental stimuli responsiveness, which reveal how the interplay of substructure-specific material properties dictates microgel swelling behavior. Our investigation of pollen grains from across the plant kingdom further showed that microgel formation occurs with tested pollen species from eudicot plants. Collectively, our experimental and computational results offer fundamental insights into how tuning pollen structure can cause dramatic alterations to material properties, and inspire future investigation into understanding how the material science of pollen might influence plant reproductive success.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15294-w Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-15294-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15294-w

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().