https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-024-01125-2
Regular Article
Diffusion mediated rigidity-gradient hydrogel substrate for cellular mechanosensing
1
Physical and Chemical Biology Lab, Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Palakkad, 678623, Palakkad, Kerala, India
2
Department of Physics, Central University of Karnataka, 585367, Kadaganchi, Karnataka, India
3
Department of Biological Sciences and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Palakkad, 678623, Palakkad, Kerala, India
Received:
6
December
2023
Accepted:
16
February
2024
Published online:
5
March
2024
Mechanical cues in the cellular micro-environment play pivotal role in several important biological processes. The rigidity of the substrate has been shown to dictate the cellular morphology through the reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton. Substrates with spatially varying rigidity are most often used to investigate the coupling of the substrate rigidity and intracellular mechanosensing machinery. Here, we present a simple yet effective method for producing hydrogel substrates with a tunable rigidity gradient. Using atomic force microscopy and epifluorescence microscopy, we have characterized the substrate in terms of rigidity. Furthermore, we have investigated the cellular response on these substrates with spatially varying rigidity.
Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-024-01125-2.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2024
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
