Hydrogels are presently under investigation as a delivery system for bioactive molecules, because of their similar physical properties as that of living tissue, which is due to their high water content, soft and rubbery consistency, and low interfacial tension with water or biological fluids. Anionic hydrogels are used in the design of intelligent controlled release devices for site-specific dr...

The cell wall of most plant biomass from forest and agricultural resources consists of three major polymers, cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Of these, hemicelluloses have gained increasing attention as sustainable raw materials. In this study, novel pH-sensitive semi-IPN hydrogels based on hemicelluloses and chitosan were prepared using glutaraldehyde as the crosslinking agent. The hemice...

Matrix elasticity regulates proliferation, apoptosis, and differentiation of many cell types across various tissues. In particular, stiffened matrix in fibrotic lesions has been shown to promote pathogenic myofibroblast activation. To better understand the underlying pathways by which fibroblasts mechano-sense matrix elasticity, we cultured primary valvular interstitial cells (VICs) isolated fr...

Hydrogels have been used primarily in the pharmaceutical field as carriers for delivery of various drugs, peptides and proteins. These systems have included stimuli-responsive gels that exhibit reversible swelling behavior and hence can show modulated release in response to external stimuli such as pH, temperature, ionic strength, electric field, or specific analyte concentration gradients. The...

pH-sensitive hydrogels are suitable candidates for oral drug delivery of peptides due to their ability to respond to their environment. We have developed new hydrogels composed of poly(methacrylic acid) (PMAA) grafted with poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) (P(MAA-g-EG)) which can be used as drug delivery carriers for salmon calcitonin. P(MAA-g-EG) hydrogels were prepared by free radical solution poly...

The magnetic hydrogels were successfully fabricated by chemically cross-linking of gelatin hydrogels and Fe3O4 nanoparticles (ca. 40–60 nm) through genipin (GP) as cross-linking agent. The cross-sectional SEM observation demonstrates that the Fe3O4 nanoparticles were fairly uniformly distributed in the gelatin matrix. Moreover, in vitro release data reveal that drug release profile of the resul...

Crosslinked macroporous hydrogels based on 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA)-[2-(methacryloyloxy)ethyl]trimethylammonium chloride (MOETACl) copolymer, HEMA-MOETACl-methacrylic acid (MA) terpolymer, and on a polyelectrolyte complex of HEMA-MA copolymer with poly(MOETACl) were prepared. All the hydrogels were prepared in the presence of fractionated sodium chloride particles. The hydrogels were ...

A significant clinical need exists to differentiate human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) into cardiomyocytes, enabling tissue modeling for in vitro discovery of new drugs or cell-based therapies for heart repair in vivo. Chemical and mechanical microenvironmental factors are known to impact the efficiency of stem cell differentiation, but cardiac differentiation protocols in hPSCs are typically...

To utilize biologic mechanisms to elicit controlled release in response to disease, protease-sensitive devices have been created. Hydrogels were created with pendant peptide-drug complexes. For the matrix metalloproteases (MMPs) examined, a length of six amino acids greatly improved the specificity of the peptide (k(cat)/K(m) approximately 2.4+/-0.1x10(4)M(-1)s(-1)) over shorter sequences (k(ca...

Methods that will remove conventional nutrient pollutants such as reactive phosphorus, even at extremely low concentrations, from wastewater effluents are a major need in the aquaculture industry. In this study, novel phosphate binding crosslinked poly(allylamine), PAA · HCl, polymeric hydrogel materials were developed, which efficiently bind phosphate anions in aquaculture wastewater effluents...