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Updated: Dec 17, 2025
Mechanical Stimulation of Chondrocyte-agarose Hydrogels
Published on: October 27, 2012
Viscoelasticity of hydrazone crosslinked poly(ethylene glycol) hydrogels directs chondrocyte morphology during
Benjamin M Richardson1, Cierra J Walker, Laura J Macdougall
1Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder, 3415 Colorado Ave, Boulder, CO 80303, USA. benjamin.richardson@colorado.edu kristi.anseth@colorado.edu.
Abstract:
Chondrocyte deformation influences disease progression and tissue regeneration in load-bearing joints. In this work, we found that viscoelasticity of dynamic covalent crosslinks temporally modulates the biophysical transmission of physiologically relevant compressive strains to encapsulated chondrocytes. Chondrocytes in viscoelastic alky-hydrazone hydrogels demonstrated (91.4 ± 4.5%) recovery of native rounded morphologies during mechanical deformation, whereas primarily elastic benzyl-hydrazone hydrogels significantly limited morphological recovery (21.2 ± 1.4%).
