Cardiomyocyte
(CM) alignment with striated myofibril organization
is developed during early cardiac organogenesis. Previous work has
successfully achieved in vitro CM alignment using
a variety of biomaterial scaffolds and substrates with static topographic
features. However, the cellular processes that occur during the response
of CMs to dynamic surface topographic changes, which may provide a
model of in vivo developmental progress of CM alignment
within embryonic myocardium, remains poorly understood. To gain insights
into these cellular processes involved in the response of CMs to dynamic
topographic changes, we developed a dynamic topographic substrate
that employs a shape memory polymer coated with polyelectrolyte multilayers
to produce a flat-to-wrinkle surface transition when triggered by
a change in incubation temperature. Using this system, we investigated
cellular morphological alignment and intracellular myofibril reorganization
in response to the dynamic wrinkle formation. Hence, we identified
the progressive cellular processes of human-induced pluripotent stem
cell-CMs in a time-dependent manner, which could provide a foundation
for a mechanistic model of cardiac myofibril reorganization in response
to extracellular microenvironment changes.
Since the term “smart materials” was put forward in the 1980s, stimuli-responsive biomaterials have been used as powerful tools in tissue engineering, mechanobiology, and clinical applications. For the purpose of myocardial repair and regeneration, stimuli-responsive biomaterials are employed to fabricate hydrogels and nanoparticles for targeted delivery of therapeutic drugs and cells, which have been proved to alleviate disease progression and enhance tissue regeneration. By reproducing the sophisticated and dynamic microenvironment of the native heart, stimuli-responsive biomaterials have also been used to engineer dynamic culture systems to understand how cardiac cells and tissues respond to progressive changes in extracellular microenvironments, enabling the investigation of dynamic cell mechanobiology. Here, we provide an overview of stimuli-responsive biomaterials used in cardiovascular research applications, with a specific focus on cardiac tissue engineering and dynamic cell mechanobiology. We also discuss how these smart materials can be utilized to mimic the dynamic microenvironment during heart development, which might provide an opportunity to reveal the fundamental mechanisms of cardiomyogenesis and cardiac maturation.
A simple ethylenediamine‐assisted hydrothermal method was developed for the synthesis of sheet‐like PbS nanostructures. Studies show that ethylenediamine not only provides a weakly basic environment for the reaction system, but also acts as a capping reagent to control the growth habit of cubic PbS. A reasonable growth mechanism for the PbS nanosheet structure has been proposed on the basis of the experimental studies. The structure, morphology, and composition of the nanosheets have been characterized by X‐ray powder diffraction, field‐emission scanning electron microscopy, energy‐dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy.
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