Abstract Scope |
Cells maintain homeostasis through monitoring the mechanics of their microenvironment. To understand these phenomena, hydrogel materials have been developed with either controllable linear elastic or viscoelastic properties. Biological tissues and biomaterials used for medical purposes often have complex mechanical properties. However, due to the difficulty in decoupling the elastic and viscous components of hydrogel materials, the effect of complex composite materials on cellular responses has largely gone unreported. Here, we describe a novel composite hydrogel system capable of decoupling and individually controlling both the bulk stiffness and surface viscoelasticity of the material by combining polyacrylamide gels with microgel thin films. By taking advantage of the high degree of control over stiffness offered by polyacrylamide gels and viscoelasticity of microgel thin films, it is possible to study the influence that bulk substrate stiffness and surface loss tangent have on complex fibroblast responses, including cellular and nuclear morphology and gene expression. |