Spinal Cord Neuronal Cell Properties Respond Differentially to the Stiffness of DNA Crosslinked Hydrogels

Mechanical cues arising from extracellular matrices greatly affect cellular properties, and hence, are of significance in designing biomaterials. Similar to many other cell types, including fibroblasts and hepatocytes, central nervous system (CNS) neurons have been found to exhibit distinct responses to the stiffness of the substrates they reside on [1]. There is an increasing awareness that mechanical properties also play a key role in successful utilization of scaffolds for those tissues whose major functions are not load-bearing, such as the spinal cord. In light of this, there is a growing interest in incorporating mechanical cues in biomaterial design for neural tissue engineering applications, including spinal cord injury.