Berlin 2018 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 10: Postersession II

BP 10.20: Poster

Monday, March 12, 2018, 17:30–19:30, Poster C

Design and characterization of mechanically tunable hyaluronic acid based hydrogels — •Martin Schilling and Florian Rehfeldt — Third Institute of Physics - Biophysics, Georg-August-University, Göttingen, Germany

Many aspects of cell behavior are influenced by the mechanical properties of their microenvironment. To mimic the various elastic moduli of different in vivo environments of cells, it is necessary to design and characterize hydrogels for cell culture with tunable elasticity.

Hyaluronic acid (HA), a polysaccharide consisting of disaccharide units, was chosen as base for the hydrogel system as it is biocompatible and not toxic for cells, thus allowing for 3D encapsulation.

However, native HA does not crosslink naturally so its disaccharides have to be chemically modified. Depending on the degree of modification HA can be used for different approaches. High modified HA hydrogels are tunable in a large range of elasticities and due to their degree of modification cannot be recognized by HA receptors of cells that need longer segments of unmodified disaccharides. A lower degree of modification decreases the range of elasticity but allows for cellular recognition of HA. In order to obtain a hydrogel with moderate elasticity and the properties of low modified HA both high and low modified HA are mixed in several different ratios. The gelation kinetics of the resulting hydrogels are investigated by rheology using oscillatory deformation tests. In order to analyze the viscoelastic properties of the cross-linked hydrogels the storage modulus G' and the loss modulus G'' were measured.