https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/s10189-024-00422-x
Regular Article - Living Systems
Effects of local incompressibility on the rheology of composite biopolymer networks
1
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Rice University, 77005, Houston, TX, USA
2
Center for Theoretical Biological Physics, Rice University, 77005, Houston, TX, USA
3
Department of Physics, Syracuse University, 13244, Syracuse, NY, USA
4
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, 16802, Philadelphia, PA, USA
5
Department of Bionanoscience, Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, Delft University of Technology, Van der Maasweg 9, 2629 HZ, Delft, The Netherlands
6
Department of Chemistry, University of Chicago, 60637, Chicago, IL, USA
7
James Franck Institute, University of Chicago, 60637, Chicago, IL, USA
8
Department of Chemistry, Rice University, 77005, Houston, TX, USA
9
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, 77005, Houston, TX, USA
a
anupamagvs@gmail.com
f
G.H.Koenderink@tudelft.nl
g
fcmack@gmail.com
Received:
6
June
2023
Accepted:
8
April
2024
Published online:
27
May
2024
Fibrous networks such as collagen are common in biological systems. Recent theoretical and experimental efforts have shed light on the mechanics of single component networks. Most real biopolymer networks, however, are composites made of elements with different rigidity. For instance, the extracellular matrix in mammalian tissues consists of stiff collagen fibers in a background matrix of flexible polymers such as hyaluronic acid (HA). The interplay between different biopolymer components in such composite networks remains unclear. In this work, we use 2D coarse-grained models to study the nonlinear strain-stiffening behavior of composites. We introduce a local volume constraint to model the incompressibility of HA. We also perform rheology experiments on composites of collagen with HA. Theoretically and experimentally, we demonstrate that the linear shear modulus of composite networks can be increased by approximately an order of magnitude above the corresponding moduli of the pure components. Our model shows that this synergistic effect can be understood in terms of the local incompressibility of HA, which acts to suppress density fluctuations of the collagen matrix with which it is entangled.
The authors are very happy to join in the celebration of Fyl Pincus’ decades-long contributions to the soft matter community, both in science and leadership. FCM is especially appreciative of the very positive influence Fyl has had on FCM’s early career in soft matter.
Copyright comment Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to EDP Sciences, SIF and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2024. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
