70333 20231129152507.0 doi 10.1371/journal.pone.0195820 sideral 105918 ART-2018-105918 eng Valero, C. (orcid)0000-0001-9318-7107 Combined experimental and computational characterization of crosslinked collagen-based hydrogels 2018 Access copy available to the general public Unrestricted Collagen hydrogels are widely used for in-vitro experiments and tissue engineering applications. Their use has been extended due to their biocompatibility with cells and their capacity to mimic biological tissues; nevertheless their mechanical properties are not always optimal for these purposes. Hydrogels are formed by a network of polymer filaments embedded on an aqueous substrate and their mechanical properties are mainly defined by the filament network architecture and the individual filament properties. To increase properties of native collagen, such as stiffness or strain-stiffening, these networks can be modified by adding crosslinking agents that alter the network architecture, increasing the unions between filaments. In this work, we have investigated the effect of one crosslinking agent, transglutaminase, in collagen hydrogels with varying collagen concentration. We have observed a linear dependency of the gel rigidity on the collagen concentration. Moreover, the addition of transglutaminase has induced an earlier strain-stiffening of the collagen gels. In addition, to better understand the mechanical implications of collagen concentration and crosslinkers inclusion, we have adapted an existing computational model, based on the worm-like chain model (WLC), to reproduce the mechanical behavior of the collagen gels. With this model we can estimate the parameters of the biopolymer networks without more sophisticated techniques, such as image processing or network reconstruction, or, inversely, predict the mechanical properties of a defined collagen network. info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/DGA/T12 info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/DGA/T86 info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/FP7/306571/EU/Predictive modelling and simulation in mechano-chemo-biology: a computer multi-approach/INSILICO-CELL info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MINECO/DPI2015-64221-C2-1-R info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MINECO/ENE2014-52105-R info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess by http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ 2.776 2018 MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCES 23 / 69 = 0.333 2018 Q2 T2 1.1 2018 Agricultural and Biological Sciences (miscellaneous) 2018 Q1 Medicine (miscellaneous) 2018 Q1 Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (miscellaneous) 2018 Q1 info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion Amaveda, H. Universidad de Zaragoza (orcid)0000-0003-2212-447X Mora, M. Universidad de Zaragoza (orcid)0000-0003-4747-7327 García-Aznar, J.M. Universidad de Zaragoza (orcid)0000-0002-9864-7683 5004 605 Universidad de Zaragoza Dpto. Ingeniería Mecánica Área Mec.Med.Cont. y Teor.Est. 5001 065 Universidad de Zaragoza Dpto. Ciencia Tecnol.Mater.Fl. Área Cienc.Mater. Ingen.Metal. 13, 4 (2018), e0195820[16 pp] PLoS One PLoS ONE 1932-6203 629417 http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/70333/files/texto_completo.pdf Versión publicada 105121 http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/70333/files/texto_completo.jpg?subformat=icon icon Versión publicada oai:zaguan.unizar.es:70333 articulos driver 2023-11-29-15:04:30 ARTICLE