Rationally designed synthetic protein hydrogels with predictable mechanical properties

Junhua Wu, Pengfei Li, Chenling Dong, Heting Jiang, Bin Xue, Xiang Gao, Meng Qin, Wei Wang (), Chen () and Yi Cao ()
Additional contact information
Junhua Wu: Nanjing University
Pengfei Li: Nanjing University
Chenling Dong: Zhejiang University
Heting Jiang: Nanjing University
Bin Xue: Nanjing University
Xiang Gao: Nanjing University
Meng Qin: Nanjing University
Wei Wang: Nanjing University
Chen: Zhejiang University
Yi Cao: Nanjing University

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Designing synthetic protein hydrogels with tailored mechanical properties similar to naturally occurring tissues is an eternal pursuit in tissue engineering and stem cell and cancer research. However, it remains challenging to correlate the mechanical properties of protein hydrogels with the nanomechanics of individual building blocks. Here we use single-molecule force spectroscopy, protein engineering and theoretical modeling to prove that the mechanical properties of protein hydrogels are predictable based on the mechanical hierarchy of the cross-linkers and the load-bearing modules at the molecular level. These findings provide a framework for rationally designing protein hydrogels with independently tunable elasticity, extensibility, toughness and self-healing. Using this principle, we demonstrate the engineering of self-healable muscle-mimicking hydrogels that can significantly dissipate energy through protein unfolding. We expect that this principle can be generalized for the construction of protein hydrogels with customized mechanical properties for biomedical applications.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-02917-6 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:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-02917-6

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

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-02917-6

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 ().