Issue 47, 2019

A rational approach to form disulfide linked mucin hydrogels

Abstract

We report the design of a mucin hydrogel created using a thiol-based cross-linking strategy. By using a cross-linking reagent capable of forming hydrogen bonds and disulfide linkages within the gel network, we were able to produce mucin-based hydrogels with viscoelastic properties similar to natural mucus as measured by bulk rheology. We confirmed disulfide cross-links strongly contribute to gel formation in our system using chemical treatments to block and reduce cysteines where we found mucin hydrogel network formation was inhibited and disrupted, respectively. Particle tracking microrheology was used to investigate the kinetics and evolution of microstructure and viscoelasticity within the hydrogel as it formed. We found that the rate of gel formation could be tuned by varying the mucin to crosslinker ratio, producing network pore sizes in the range measured previously in human mucus. The results of this work provide a new, simple method for creating mucin hydrogels with physiologically relevant properties using readily available reagents.

Graphical abstract: A rational approach to form disulfide linked mucin hydrogels

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
23 Aug 2019
Accepted
16 Oct 2019
First published
17 Oct 2019

Soft Matter, 2019,15, 9632-9639

A rational approach to form disulfide linked mucin hydrogels

K. Joyner, D. Song, R. F. Hawkins, R. D. Silcott and G. A. Duncan, Soft Matter, 2019, 15, 9632 DOI: 10.1039/C9SM01715A

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