Designing polyHEMA substrates that mimic the viscoelastic response of soft tissue

Matching the mechanical properties of a biomaterial to soft tissue is often overlooked despite the fact that it is well known that cells respond to and are capable of changing their mechanical environment. In this paper, we used NaCl and alginate beads as porogens to make a series of micro- and macro-porous pHEMA substrates (poly(2-hydroxyethly methacrylate)) and quantified their mechanical behavior under low-magnitude shear loads over physiologically relevant frequencies. Using a stress-controlled rheometer, we performed isothermal (37 °C) frequency response experiments between 0.628 and 75.4 rad/s (0.01-12 Hz) at 0.1% strain. Both micro- and macro-porous pHEMA substrates were predominately elastic in nature with a narrow range of G′ and G″ values that mimicked the response of human skin. The magnitude of the G′ and G″ values of the macro-porous substrates were designed to closely match human skin. To determine how cell growth might alter their mechanical properties, pHEMA substrates were functionalized and human skin fibroblasts grown on them for fourteen days. As a result of cell growth, the magnitude of G′ and G″ increased at low frequencies while also altering the degree of high frequency dependence, indicating that cellular interactions with the micro-pore infrastructure has a profound effect on the viscoelastic behavior of the substrates. These data could be fit to a mathematical model describing a soft-solid. A quantitative understanding of the mechanical behavior of biomaterials in regimes that are physiologically relevant and how these mechanics may change after implantation may aid in the design of new materials.