Facile One-step Micropatterning Using Photodegradable Methacrylated Gelatin Hydrogels for Improved Cardiomyocyte Organization and Alignment

Kelly M C Tsang; Nasim Annabi; Francesca Ercole; Kun Zhou; Daniel Karst; Fanyi Li; John M Haynes; Richard A Evans; Helmut Thissen; Ali Khademhosseini; John S Forsythe

doi:10.1002/adfm.201403124

Facile One-step Micropatterning Using Photodegradable Methacrylated Gelatin Hydrogels for Improved Cardiomyocyte Organization and Alignment

Adv Funct Mater. 2015 Feb 11;25(6):977-986. doi: 10.1002/adfm.201403124.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Engineering, Wellington Road, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia. CSIRO Manufacturing Flagship, Bayview Avenue, Clayton, VIC 3168, Australia. CRC for Polymers, 8 Redwood Drive, Notting Hill, VIC 3168, Australia.
² Biomaterials Innovation Research Center, Division of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 02139, MA, USA. Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge 02139, MA, USA. Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, 02115, MA, USA.
³ Department of Materials Engineering, Wellington Road, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia.
⁴ Biomaterials Innovation Research Center, Division of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 02139, MA, USA. Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge 02139, MA, USA.
⁵ Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences; Drug Discovery Biology, Department of Pharmaceutical Biology, Monash University, Parkville, VIC 3052, Australia.
⁶ CSIRO Manufacturing Flagship, Bayview Avenue, Clayton, VIC 3168, Australia. CRC for Polymers, 8 Redwood Drive, Notting Hill, VIC 3168, Australia.
⁷ Biomaterials Innovation Research Center, Division of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 02139, MA, USA. Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge 02139, MA, USA. Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, 02115, MA, USA. Department of Maxillofacial Biomedical Engineering and Institute of Oral Biology, School of Dentistry, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 130-701, Republic of Korea. Department of Physics, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21569, Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

Hydrogels are often employed as temporary platforms for cell proliferation and tissue organization in vitro. Researchers have incorporated photodegradable moieties into synthetic polymeric hydrogels as a means of achieving spatiotemporal control over material properties. In this study protein-based photodegradable hydrogels composed of methacrylated gelatin (GelMA) and a crosslinker containing o-nitrobenzyl ester groups have been developed. The hydrogels are able to degrade rapidly and specifically in response to UV light and can be photopatterned to a variety of shapes and dimensions in a one-step process. Micropatterned photodegradable hydrogels are shown to improve cell distribution, alignment and beating regularity of cultured neonatal rat cardiomyocytes. Overall this work introduces a new class of photodegradable hydrogel based on natural and biofunctional polymers as cell culture substrates for improving cellular organization and function.

Keywords: Gelatin Methacrylate (GelMA); cardiomyocyte alignment; photodegradable hydrogels; photopatterning; tissue engineering.

Abstract

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