Nonlinear elasticity of biological basement membrane revealed by rapid inflation and deflation

Basement membrane (BM) is a thin layer of extracellular matrix that surrounds most animal tissues, serving as a physical barrier while allowing nutrient exchange. Although they have important roles in tissue structural integrity, physical properties of BMs remain largely uncharacterized, which limits our understanding of their mechanical functions. Here, we perform pressure-controlled inflation and deflation to directly measure the nonlinear mechanics of BMs in situ. We show that the BMs behave as a permeable, hyperelastic material whose mechanical properties and permeability can be measured in a model-independent manner. Furthermore, we find that BMs exhibit a remarkable nonlinear stiffening behavior, in contrast to the reconstituted Matrigel. This nonlinear stiffening behavior helps the BMs to avoid the snap-through instability (or structural softening) widely observed during the inflation of most elastomeric balloons and thus maintain sufficient confining stress to the enclosed tissues during their growth.