TY  - JOUR
A1  - Brand, Jessica S.
A1  - Forster, Leonard
A1  - Böck, Thomas
A1  - Stahlhut, Philipp
A1  - Teßmar, Jörg
A1  - Groll, Jürgen
A1  - Albrecht, Krystyna
T1  - Covalently Cross-Linked Pig Gastric Mucin Hydrogels Prepared by Radical-Based Chain-Growth and Thiol-ene Mechanisms
JF  - Macromolecular Bioscience
N2  - Mucin, a high molecular mass hydrophilic glycoprotein, is the main component of mucus that coats every wet epithelium in animals. It is thus intrinsically biocompatible, and with its protein backbone and the o-glycosidic bound oligosaccharides, it contains a plethora of functional groups which can be used for further chemical modifications. Here, chain-growth and step-growth (thiol-ene) free-radical cross-linked hydrogels prepared from commercially available pig gastric mucin (PGM) are introduced and compared as cost-efficient and easily accessible alternative to the more broadly applied bovine submaxillary gland mucin. For this, PGM is functionalized with photoreactive acrylate groups or allyl ether moieties, respectively. Whereas homopolymerization of acrylate-functionalized polymers is performed, for thiol-ene cross-linking, the allyl-ether-functionalized PGM is cross-linked with thiol-functionalized hyaluronic acid. Morphology, mechanical properties, and cell compatibility of both kinds of PGM hydrogels are characterized and compared. Furthermore, the biocompatibility of these hydrogels can be evaluated in cell culture experiments.
KW  - click chemistry
KW  - photopolymerization
KW  - hydrogels
KW  - mucin
KW  - thiol-ene
Y1  - 2022
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-318453
VL  - 22
IS  - 4
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Ryma, Matthias
A1  - Genç, Hatice
A1  - Nadernezhad, Ali
A1  - Paulus, Ilona
A1  - Schneidereit, Dominik
A1  - Friedrich, Oliver
A1  - Andelovic, Kristina
A1  - Lyer, Stefan
A1  - Alexiou, Christoph
A1  - Cicha, Iwona
A1  - Groll, Jürgen
T1  - A Print-and-Fuse Strategy for Sacrificial Filaments Enables Biomimetically Structured Perfusable Microvascular Networks with Functional Endothelium Inside 3D Hydrogels
JF  - Advanced Materials
N2  - A facile and flexible approach for the integration of biomimetically branched microvasculature within bulk hydrogels is presented. For this, sacrificial scaffolds of thermoresponsive poly(2-cyclopropyl-2-oxazoline) (PcycloPrOx) are created using melt electrowriting (MEW) in an optimized and predictable way and subsequently placed into a customized bioreactor system, which is then filled with a hydrogel precursor solution. The aqueous environment above the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) of PcycloPrOx at 25 °C swells the polymer without dissolving it, resulting in fusion of filaments that are deposited onto each other (print-and-fuse approach). Accordingly, an adequate printing pathway design results in generating physiological-like branchings and channel volumes that approximate Murray's law in the geometrical ratio between parent and daughter vessels. After gel formation, a temperature decrease below the LCST produces interconnected microchannels with distinct inlet and outlet regions. Initial placement of the sacrificial scaffolds in the bioreactors in a pre-defined manner directly yields perfusable structures via leakage-free fluid connections in a reproducible one-step procedure. Using this approach, rapid formation of a tight and biologically functional endothelial layer, as assessed not only through fluorescent dye diffusion, but also by tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) stimulation, is obtained within three days.
KW  - hydrogels
KW  - microvasculature
KW  - melt electrowriting
Y1  - 2022
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-318532
VL  - 34
IS  - 28
ER  -