Journal: Polymers
Article Title: Dynamic Mechanical Control of Alginate-Fibronectin Hydrogels with Dual Crosslinking: Covalent and Ionic
doi: 10.3390/polym13030433
Figure Lengend Snippet: Simplified sketch of covalently crosslinked alginate hydrogels with degradable or non-degradable crosslinks. ( a ) Norbornene-modified alginate hydrogels are formed by UV-initiated polymerisation using a thiolated crosslinker (dithithreitol, DTT, in red) or ( b ) a custom-synthesised thiolated protease-sensitive peptide (GCRDVPMSMRGGDRCG, VPM, in red, where R depicts the degradable peptide chain). ( c ) Additionally, alginate hydrogels can incorporate the full fibronectin protein by using maleimide functionalised PEGylated fibronectin (PEGylation using a 4-arm-PEG-maleimide, ratio 1:4 FN:PEGMAL) and a thiolated protease-sensitive peptide crosslinker. Note that both norbornene-thiol and maleimide-thiol reactions are stochastic and the sketches aim to represent the nature of the different crosslinking reactions, not the real final structure of the hydrogel.
Article Snippet: Two different types of crosslinkers were used—either dithiothreitol (DTT, Sigma-Aldrich, Eppelheim, Germany) or protease-degradable custom synthesised peptide (VPM, GCRDVPMSMRGGDRCG, purity 96.9%, M w 1696.96 Da, GenScript, Leiden, The Netherlands).
Techniques: Modification