Mechanobiochemistry: harnessing biomacromolecules for force-responsive materials

Brantley, Johnathan N.; Bailey, Constance B.; Wiggins, Kelly M.; Keatinge‐Clay, Adrian T.; Bielawski, Christopher W.

doi:10.1039/c3py00001j

Cited by 47 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 94 publications

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“…Mechanical control of structure, orientation, and interactions of individual molecules was applied to the design of mechanically responsive nanomaterials and nanosystems [31]. Various mechanophores were purposely synthesized and incorporated into polymers to create stress-responsive materials [32][33][34]. Activation of latent catalysts opens interesting opportunities for the rational design of new mechano-catalytic systems for truly autonomous (e.g., self-healing) applications [35].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Molecular Mechanochemistry: Engineering and Implications of Inherently Strained Architectures

Sheiko

2015

Topics in Current Chemistry

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Mechanical activation of chemical bonds is usually achieved by applying external forces. However, nearly all molecules exhibit inherent strain of their chemical bonds and angles as a result of constraints imposed by covalent bonding and interactions with the surrounding environment. Particularly strong deformation of bonds and angles is observed in hyperbranched macromolecules caused by steric repulsion of densely grafted polymer branches. In addition to the tension amplification, macromolecular architecture allows for accurate control of strain distribution, which enables focusing of the internal mechanical tension to specific chemical bonds and angles. As such, chemically identical bonds in self-strained macromolecules become physically distinct because the difference in bond tension leads to the corresponding difference in the electronic structure and chemical reactivity of individual bonds within the same macromolecule. In this review, we outline different approaches to the design of strained macromolecules along with physical principles of tension management, including generation, amplification, and focusing of mechanical tension at specific chemical bonds.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Molecular Mechanochemistry: Engineering and Implications of Inherently Strained Architectures

Sheiko

2015

Topics in Current Chemistry

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“…The reader is referred to an excellent current review on mechanobiochemistry for further inspiration. [30] …”

Section: Damage Self-reporting Polymer Compositesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combining Polymers with the Functionality of Proteins: New Concepts for Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization, Nanoreactors and Damage Self-reporting Materials

Bruns

Lörcher

Makyła

et al. 2013

Chimia

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Proteins are macromolecules with a great diversity of functions. By combining these biomolecules with polymers, exciting opportunities for new concepts in polymer sciences arise. This highlight exemplifies the aforementioned with current research results of our group. We review our discovery that the proteins horseradish peroxidase and hemoglobin possess ATRPase activity, i.e. they catalyze atom transfer radical polymerizations. Moreover, a permeabilization method for polymersomes is presented, where the photoreaction of an α-hydroxyalkylphenone with block copolymer vesicles yields enzyme-containing nanoreactors. A further intriguing possibility to obtain functional nanoreactors is to enclose a polymerization catalyst into the thermosome, a protein cage from the family of chaperonins. Last but not least, fluorescent proteins are discussed as mechanoresponsive molecular sensors that report microdamages within fiber-reinforced composite materials.

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“…Actually, mechanochemistry is ubiquitous in biological systems and plays an essential role in realizing many vital functions of living organisms [4][5][6][7][8]. For instance, cell adhesion and growth, activation of ion channels, clotting of blood and hearing, all rely on the well-regulated mechanosensing and mechanochemical transduction processes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a result, the focus of studying mechanochemical degradation of polymers has shifted from optimization of processing properties to understand mechanochemical events at molecular level and to the development of functional mechano-responsive materials. The last decade has witnessed tremendous progress on the creation of mechano-responsive polymers [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. Mechanical force has been used, for instance, to activate ring-opening [13,17,21] and cycloreversion reactions [14,15,22], to trigger latent polymeric catalysts [12,[23][24][25], to guide "flex activation" [16,26], to induce cross-linking reactions [24,27,28], to assemble or disassemble supramolecular polymers in a controlled manner [29][30][31][32][33][34], and so on.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent advances in mechanoluminescent polymers

Yuan

Chen

2016

Sci. China Mater.

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In recent years, mechanoluminescence from polymers is emerging as a new cutting-edge area of polymer mechanochemistry research. It refers to the release of energy from polymers in the form of light when they are under various mechanical stimuli. To spur more researchers to join in such interesting and new burgeoning area, and promote its development to practical applications, in this review, we try to briefly summarize the recent advances in mechanoluminescent polymers with the aspects of non-covalent, covalent, and cascade reactions systems. We pay much attention on the applications of such polymer systems in molecular level failure and stress sensors, and give a perspective of their potential applications in novel energy conversion materials and devices, as well as self-healing materials.

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Mechanobiochemistry: harnessing biomacromolecules for force-responsive materials

Cited by 47 publications

References 94 publications

Molecular Mechanochemistry: Engineering and Implications of Inherently Strained Architectures

Molecular Mechanochemistry: Engineering and Implications of Inherently Strained Architectures

Combining Polymers with the Functionality of Proteins: New Concepts for Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization, Nanoreactors and Damage Self-reporting Materials

Recent advances in mechanoluminescent polymers

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