The processes of growth, proliferation and differentiation of stem cells encapsulated in 3D hydrogel microenvironments are strongly affected by the viscoelastic properties of the platforms. As the viscoelastic response of a hydrogel is determined by the rates of thermally induced dissociation of reversible cross-links, its modulation by introduction of several types of supramolecular and/or dynamic covalent bonds with different characteristic lifetimes has recently become a hot topic. To reduce the number of experiments needed for design of hydrogel microenvironments with required mechanical properties, a model is developed for the viscoelastic and viscoplastic responses of hydrogels with multiple networks bridged by covalent and physical bonds. An advantage of the model is that it (i) involves a small number of material parameters, (ii) describes observations in rheological and mechanical tests in a unified manner, and (iii) predicts conventional measures of viscoelasticity used in the analysis of viability of cells.
Keywords: Cell encapsulation; Dynamic covalent gel; Modeling; Supramolecular gel; Viscoelasticity.
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