Work

Mechanical strain-regulated hydrogel biodegradation for biological scaffolds with programmable lifetime

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: . Using peptide-crosslinked tetra-PEG hydrogels and proteinase K as a model system, we developed a real-time stress-monitoring platform to quantitatively study strain-dependent enzymatic degradation. Time-resolved measurements reveal that mechanical strain significantly accelerates degradation by simultaneously enhancing diffusion and reaction rates. For thick hydrogel samples, uniaxial stretching significantly reduces the degradation time by four-fold from 7.6 hours (undeformed) to 1.9 hours (stretched), shifting the process from slow, surface-limited to rapid, volumetric degradation. A multiscale theoretical model that we developed identifies three synergistic effects of mechanical strain: reduced diffusion path due to geometric thinning, increased network mesh size for enhanced enzyme penetration, and elevated chain tension that promotes bond cleavage. These findings establish mechanical loading as a universal tool in biological systems to dynamically modulate hydrogel lifetimes, offering new opportunities for programmable drug release and scaffold-guided tissue remodeling.

Source: Journal of Materials Chemistry B

DOI: 10.1039/d5tb01056j