PEG-PLGA from PolySciTech used in investigation of macrophage behavior in response to fiber elasticity

 

Human cells commonly respond to a wide array of environmental factors including oxygen, pH, external signals, hormones, and other properties of the area that they are in. When interacting with a surface or other component the cells will also react to the mechanical properties of the material they are adjacent to. Researchers at BenHealth Biopharmaceutical, DGENE Bighealth, and Chinese Academy of Science used a series of PEG-PLGA polymers (AK037, AK026) from PolySciTech Division of Akina, Inc. (www.polyscitech.com) to create nanofibers and allowed these to interact with macrophages. They found that the macrophages exhibit inflammatory activation in response to varying elastic modulus of the fibers. This research holds promise to provide for control of the human immune system. Read more: Zhang, Bokai, Massimiliano Galluzzi, Guoqiao Zhou, and Haoyang Yu. "A study of macrophage mechanical properties and functional modulation based on the Young's modulus of PLGA-PEG fibers." Biomaterials Science (2023). https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2023/bm/d2bm01351g

“Abstract: The immune response of macrophages plays an important role in defending against viral infection, tumor deterioration and repairing of contused tissue. Macrophage functional differentiation induced by nanodrugs is the leading edge of current research, but nanodrugs have toxic side effects, and the influence of their physical properties on macrophages is not clear. Here we create an alternative way to modulate macrophage function through PLGA-PEG fibers’ Young's modulus. Previously, we revealed that by controlling the Young's modulus of the fibers from kPa to MPa, all the fibers entered murine macrophage cells (RWA 264.7) in a similar manner, and based on that, we found that macrophages’ mechanical properties were affected by the fibers’ Young's modulus, that is, hard fibers with a Young's modulus of ∼1 MPa increased the cell average Young's modulus, but did not affect the cell shape, while soft fibers with a Young's modulus of ∼100 kPa decreased the cell average Young's modulus and modulated the cell shape to a more spherical one. On the other hand, only the soft fibers induced proinflammatory cytokine secretion, indicating an M1 macrophage functional modulation by low Young's modulus fibers. This study explored the mechanical properties of the interactions between PLGA-PEG fibers and cells, in particular, when guiding the direction of the modulation of macrophage function, which is of great significance for the applications of material biology in the biomedical field.”