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Published May 2015 | Published + Supplemental Material
Journal Article Open

A biochemical network can control formation of a synthetic material by sensing numerous specific stimuli

Abstract

Developing bio-compatible smart materials that assemble in response to environmental cues requires strategies that can discriminate multiple specific stimuli in a complex milieu. Synthetic materials have yet to achieve this level of sensitivity, which would emulate the highly evolved and tailored reaction networks of complex biological systems. Here we show that the output of a naturally occurring network can be replaced with a synthetic material. Exploiting the blood coagulation system as an exquisite biological sensor, the fibrin clot end-product was replaced with a synthetic material under the biological control of a precisely regulated cross-linking enzyme. The functions of the coagulation network remained intact when the material was incorporated. Clot-like polymerization was induced in indirect response to distinct small molecules, phospholipids, enzymes, cells, viruses, an inorganic solid, a polyphenol, a polysaccharide, and a membrane protein. This strategy demonstrates for the first time that an existing stimulus-responsive biological network can be used to control the formation of a synthetic material by diverse classes of physiological triggers.

Additional Information

© 2015 Macmillan Publishers Limited. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Received 30 January 2015; Accepted 10 April 2015; Published 15 May 2015. This work was funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research (MOP-119426 and MSH-130166), the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (31928), and the BC Knowledge Development Fund. We thank S. Novakowski, J. Baylis, N. Mazinani, and B. Pentelute for helpful suggestions, and D. Horne from the UBC Bioimaging facility for help with SEM. Author Contributions: J.H.Y., K.Y.T.C., T.C.W., R.F.I., E.L.G.P., and C.J.K. conceived the hypotheses, methods, and applications; K.Y.T.C., J.H.Y., T.C.W., K.C., M.R.S., and C.J.K. performed experiments; K.Y.T.C., J.H.Y., T.C.W., K.C., and C.J.K. analyzed data; K.Y.T.C., J.H.Y., T.C.W., and C.J.K. wrote the manuscript; and all authors discussed results and commented on the manuscript. J.H.Y. and K.Y.T.C. contributed equally. Competing financial interests: The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Additional details

Created:
August 20, 2023
Modified:
October 23, 2023