Optically Responsive and Mechanically Tunable Colloid‐In‐Liquid Crystal Gels that Support Growth of Fibroblasts

Agarwal, Ankit; Huang, Elise; Palecek, Sean P.; Abbott, Nicholas L.

doi:10.1002/adma.200800932

Cited by 41 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 27 publications

(61 reference statements)

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“…Additionally, several studies have investigated the impact that contact with various LCs has on the viability of cells [107-109] and microorgansisms [109, 110]. In particular, it was found that LC interfaces can be used to support the growth of cells [111, 112]. Such LC-based substrates may have utility in reporting interactions with cells.…”

Section: Lcs As Sensors Of Viruses Bacteria and Mammalian Cellsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chemical and biological sensing using liquid crystals

Carlton

Hunter

Miller

et al. 2013

Liquid Crystals Reviews

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The liquid crystalline state of matter arises from orientation-dependent, non-covalent interaction between molecules within condensed phases. Because the balance of intermolecular forces that underlies formation of liquid crystals is delicate, this state of matter can, in general, be easily perturbed by external stimuli (such as an electric field in a display). In this review, we present an overview of recent efforts that have focused on exploiting the responsiveness of liquid crystals as the basis of chemical and biological sensors. In this application of liquid crystals, the challenge is to design liquid crystalline systems that undergo changes in organization when perturbed by targeted chemical and biological species of interest. The approaches described below revolve around the design of interfaces that selectively bind targeted species, thus leading to surface-driven changes in the organization of the liquid crystals. Because liquid crystals possess anisotropic optical and dielectric properties, a range of different methods can be used to read out the changes in organization of liquid crystals that are caused by targeted chemical and biological species. This review focuses on principles for liquid crystal-based sensors that provide an optical output.

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Section: Lcs As Sensors Of Viruses Bacteria and Mammalian Cellsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Chemical and biological sensing using liquid crystals

Carlton

Hunter

Miller

et al. 2013

Liquid Crystals Reviews

Self Cite

323

236

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“…E7 is a mixture of four alkoxycyanobiphenyls (nCBs) with different aliphatic chain length: 51 wt.% 4-cyano-4'-n-pentyl-biphenyl (5CB), 25 wt.% 4-cyano-4'-nheptyl-biphenyl (7CB), 16 wt.% 4-cyano-4'-noxyoctyl-biphenyl (8OCB) and 8 wt.% 4-cyano-4'-n-pentyl-p-terphenyl (5CT). Agarwal et al, (2008) and Pal et al, (2009) demonstrated that when colloidal suspensions of microspheres are prepared in the isotropic phase of LCs followed by cooling below their isotropic-nematic transition temperature (T NI ), they form birefringent waxy semi-solid (gel) with significant storage modulus (G'~10 3 -10 5 KPa). This gelation has been suggested to result from the formation of a particle network resulted from expulsion of colloids from the nematic LC as it cools down from isotropic to nematic phase.…”

Section: Colloidal Liquid Crystal Gels For Biomolecular Amplificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Liquid Crystal Biosensors: New Approaches

Sidiq¹

2016

Proceedings of the Indian National Science Academy

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This review describes recent advances in the area of research involving the interfacial design of liquid crystal (LC) based biosensors. The first advance revolves around the design and modulation of LC based interfaces for developing LC based stimuli responsive materials. For example, designing nanostructured thin films of LC-based colloidal gels exhibit the sensitivity and specificity with the added benefits of mechanical robustness and processability and can be used to report adsorption of biological and synthetic amphiphiles at aqueous-LC interfaces. In addition, a new pathway for the easy formation of spontaneous uniform LC droplets has been reported that provides a high spatial resolution of micrometers with a very high sensitivity. A second development has focused on the investigations of the ordering of LCs at aqueous interfaces for qualitative and quantitative understanding of important biomolecular interactions for bedside diagnostics and laboratory applications. These important biomolecular interactions include: (i) protein endotoxin interactions as these lead to divergent effects on lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced responses, (ii) pH induced conformation change of cardiolipin (CL) which is known to affect a range of cellular processes and (iii) endotoxin interactions with bacterial cell wall components.Thirdly this study involves design of LC based sensors that hold promise to act as a marker for cells and cell based interactions. Overall, this review illustrates new approaches for developing LC based stimuli responsive materials that are anticipated with fundamental understanding of biomolecular interactions and provide a gateway for further advances involving LCs. Keywords IntroductionBiomolecular interactions govern the affinity and specificity of complex formation and determine their biological function which could be of enormous scientific and practical importance. The pre-requisite to understand biomolecular function in the context of life and metabolism, it is necessary to analyze interactions of biomolecules by each other. A promising approach to study these interactions is to use liquid crystalline (LC) materials since it is advantageous as many biological systems, including cell membranes, phospholipids, cholesterols, DNA and so forth, exist in LC phases (Stewart, 2003; Steward, 2004). Recently, LCs have been explored for the design of interfaces that mediate desired interactions with biological systems (Lowe and Abbott, 2012). LC materials allow label-free observations of biological phenomena as the orientational properties of LCs enable the amplification and the transduction of biologically relevant binding events at nanostructured surfaces into optical outputs visible by naked eye (Brake et al., 2003a; Lin et al., 2011;Brake and Abbott, 2002; Brake et al., 2003b; Lockwood et al., 2005; Price and Schwartz, 2008;Brake et al., 2005; Lockwood et al., 2006;Sivakumar et al., 2009;Gupta et al., 2009; Park and Abbott, 2008; Hu and Jang, 2012;Bai et al., 2014; Khan and Park, 2014;Sadati et al....

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“…Whereas the commonly used nematic 5CB, other synthetic LCs and other phase (cholesteric) [69] or type (lyotropic) [70] of LCs offer a rich pool for exploration and provide more versatile properties. Taking advantage of emerging fabrication techniques, it is shown that low molecular weight LCs can be tailored to form a gel-like material with tunable mechanics [71], which promises a possibility of using LCs to culture mammalian cells (which are sensitive to substrate stiffness) [72] and reporting the interactions between cells and substrates. In addition, LCs with the orientational alignment and anisotropic mechanical properties might be a good candidate for directing neurite branching [73,74] and promoting stem cell differentiation, etc.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond displays: The recent progress of liquid crystals for bio/chemical detections

Dong

Yang

2013

Chin. Sci. Bull.

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Liquid crystals (LCs) are often known as electronic displays and have become ubiquitous in our daily life, apart from that, in the past 10 years, LCs have been investigated as exquisitely sensitive reporters for developing new molecular sensing and detection tools. The unique and primary advantage of this class of intriguing materials is the perturbation of the local ordering LCs at molecular scale by bio/chemical species can be communicated within LC molecules and extended over microns, allowing the observation of the optical signals by microscope or even the naked eye. Therefore, it provides a new platform for developing bio/chemical detection and potentially label-free sensing systems. In March 1888, a young botanist called Friedrich Reinitzer [1] first found that esters of cholesterol appeared to have two melting points between which the liquid showed iridescent colors and birefringence. Actually he discovered a new phase of matter: a liquid crystalline phase, distinguished from solids, liquids and gases that are already familiar to us [2]. Substances in this fourth state are called liquid crystals (LCs), flowing like a conventional liquid and exhibiting orientational order like a crystalline solid. In general, the molecules forming LCs are anisotropic, either rod-like or disc-like. There are two basic classes of LCs: thermotropic and lyotropic. In the thermotropic system, the liquid crystalline phase only exists within a particular temperature range, between a melting point, T m , and an upper transition temperature, T c (Figure 1). In the lyotropic system, LCs possess polar and non-polar parts within the same molecule. In a certain concentration range, molecules organize themselves into ordered structures showing LC properties. This review will not discuss lyotropes further and focus on thermotropic LCs, especially 4-cyano-4′-pentylbiphenyl (5CB), which exhibits liquid crystallinity in the nematic phase at room temperature, a simple and handy choice for constructing optical detectors performed at ambient condition. The key principle of employing LCs for molecular detection is illustrated in Figure 2. The local interruption of LC ordering at the molecular scale can be amplified to micron

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Optically Responsive and Mechanically Tunable Colloid‐In‐Liquid Crystal Gels that Support Growth of Fibroblasts

Cited by 41 publications

References 27 publications

Chemical and biological sensing using liquid crystals

Chemical and biological sensing using liquid crystals

Liquid Crystal Biosensors: New Approaches

Beyond displays: The recent progress of liquid crystals for bio/chemical detections

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