Biomaterials articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    The production of graphene nanoflakes for biological studies is usually done in a controlled chemical environment. Here, the authors develop a method to produce graphene nanoflakes in biofluids and find that their protein coats are different from that of other materials.

    • V. Castagnola
    • , W. Zhao
    •  & K. A. Dawson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The conjugation of nanoparticles and proteins can require complex optimization for the addition of different proteins. Here, the authors report on the development of a simple isopeptide bond forming method of conjoining gold nanoparticles and fusion proteins.

    • Wenwei Ma
    • , Angela Saccardo
    •  & Enrico Ferrari

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Proteins can serve as means of medical treatment, but their efficient delivery to cells is difficult. Here, the authors present a type of polymers, fluoroamphiphiles, acting as chemical chaperones that can facilitate the import of proteins into the inner compartment, i.e. cytosol, of cells.

    • Zhenjing Zhang
    • , Wanwan Shen
    •  & Yiyun Cheng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The treatment of inflammatory arthritis by local delivery of therapeutics is limited by short half-lives of drugs. Here the authors demonstrate a hydrogel platform that titrates drug release to arthritis activity.

    • Nitin Joshi
    • , Jing Yan
    •  & Jeffrey M. Karp

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Integrating cell-laden hydrogels effectively into the 3D printing process is a challenge in the creation of tissue engineering scaffolds. Here, the authors describe an additive manufacturing technique to combine polymer and cell-containing networks with 3D-printed mechanical supports.

    • Héloïse Ragelle
    • , Mark W. Tibbitt
    •  & Robert Langer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Porous membranes show great promise for CO2 separation and capture, but are currently limited by a trade-off between permeance and selectivity. Here, the authors fabricate a bio-inspired, ultra-thin enzymatic liquid membrane that displays exceptional CO2 permeability and selectivity under ambient conditions.

    • Yaqin Fu
    • , Ying-Bing Jiang
    •  & C. Jeffrey Brinker

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The restoration of light response using retinal prosthesis could be a way to restore vision following retinal degenerative disease. Here the authors develop gold-titania nanowire arrays that restore visual response in blind mice.

    • Jing Tang
    • , Nan Qin
    •  & Gengfeng Zheng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    3D-printed soft actuators have limited motion and are far from reaching the level of complexity found in biological systems. Here the authors present a multimaterial 3D printing platform for the fabrication of soft actuators displaying a wide range of motions that are programmable.

    • Manuel Schaffner
    • , Jakob A. Faber
    •  & André R. Studart

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Synthesis of protein-polymer conjugates typically relies on multi-step processes in solution and on challenging purification strategies. Here the authors show a robust synthesis approach which eliminates purification processes by immobilizing proteins reversibly on modified agarose beads before grafting from polymers via ATRP.

    • Hironobu Murata
    • , Sheiliza Carmali
    •  & Alan J. Russell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fouling of solid surfaces is a problem when designing microchannel systems for applications such as bioassays and drug delivery. Here Hou et al. propose a way to overcome this issue by controlling fluid flow by means of an immiscible functional liquid partly infiltrated in a porous solid matrix.

    • Xu Hou
    • , Jianyu Li
    •  & Joanna Aizenberg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mechanical properties of protein hydrogels are critical to mimic natural tissue but correlating bulk properties on the molecular level remains challenging. Here the authors show that the hierarchy of crosslinkers and load-bearing modules on a molecular level defines the mechanical properties of the hydrogel.

    • Junhua Wu
    • , Pengfei Li
    •  & Yi Cao

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nanocarrier administration is often performed via intermittent bolus injection while sustained delivery platforms are rarely reported. Here the authors demonstrate that the cylinder-to-sphere transitions of self-assembled filomicelle scaffolds can be used for sustained delivery with improved resorptive capacity and biocompatibility.

    • Nicholas B. Karabin
    • , Sean Allen
    •  & Evan A. Scott

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Scaffolded DNA origami by folding single-stranded DNA into three-dimensional nanostructures holds promise for building functional nanomachines, yet their dynamic structures remain largely unknown. Here, Lei et al. address this issue using individual-particle electron tomography at 6–14 nm resolution.

    • Dongsheng Lei
    • , Alexander E. Marras
    •  & Gang Ren

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Liquid crystals comprising inorganic species are far less common than their organic-based counterparts. Here, the authors report a magneto-optically responsive liquid crystal based on nanorods of the biomineral hydroxyapatite, representing a new type of biologically-based, dynamic inorganic material.

    • Masanari Nakayama
    • , Satoshi Kajiyama
    •  & Takashi Kato

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Purely elastic biomimetic soft materials are used to characterize the mechanical response of cells, but do not resemble real tissues. Here the authors develop a viscoelastic solid hydrogel, based on polyacrylamide, that can be tuned to closely resemble soft tissue, and show the influence of viscous dissipation on cellular mechanical sensing.

    • Elisabeth E. Charrier
    • , Katarzyna Pogoda
    •  & Paul A. Janmey

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Light in biological media is known as freely diffusing because interference is negligible. Here, the authors demonstrate Anderson localization of light from quasi-two-dimensional nanostructures in silk fibres.

    • Seung Ho Choi
    • , Seong-Wan Kim
    •  & Young L. Kim

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The application potential of organic nanotubes is currently limited by their lack of designable or dynamic properties. Here, Chen et al. use sequence-defined peptoids to assemble a new family of pH-responsive stiff nanotubes whose dimensions, components and functions can be easily tailored.

    • Haibao Jin
    • , Yan-Huai Ding
    •  & Chun-Long Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    DNA based technology holds promise for non-volatile memory and computational tasks, yet the relatively slow hybridization kinetics remain a bottleneck. Here, Song et al. have developed an electric field-induced hybridization platform that can speed up multi-bit memory and logic operations.

    • Youngjun Song
    • , Sejung Kim
    •  & Xiaohua Huang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Poor adherence to daily antiretrovirals can significantly affect treatment efficacy, but oral long-acting antiretrovirals are currently lacking. Here, the authors develop a once-weekly oral dosage form for anti-HIV drugs, assess its pharmacokinetics in pigs, and model its impact on viral resistance and disease epidemics.

    • Ameya R. Kirtane
    • , Omar Abouzid
    •  & Giovanni Traverso

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Many industrial applications require switchable adhesive properties in wet conditions, but this still remains challenging to achieve. Here the authors synthesize an adhesive based on host-guest interactions that exhibits reversible, tunable and fast regulation of the wet adhesion on diverse surfaces.

    • Yanhua Zhao
    • , Yang Wu
    •  & Zuankai Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mechanics and structural transitions of DNA are important to many essential processes inside living cells. Here the authors combine theory and single-molecule experiments to show that intercalator binding stabilises a new structural state of DNA: hyperstretched DNA.

    • Koen Schakenraad
    • , Andreas S. Biebricher
    •  & Paul van der Schoot

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cellular delivery of proteins is currently limited by inefficient release from their carrier or by altering the protein structure after chemical modification. Here the authors use metal-organic frameworks which act as nanofactories and show a supported enzymatic activity for an extended period of time.

    • Xizhen Lian
    • , Alfredo Erazo-Oliveras
    •  & Hong-Cai Zhou

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chiral surfaces are emerging as important biomaterial components, as they can modulate cell behavior. Here, the authors modify plasmonic nanoparticle films with amino acid isomers, and find that the chirality of the film remarkably affects cell proliferation, adhesion, and directional differentiation.

    • Xueli Zhao
    • , Liguang Xu
    •  & Hua Kuang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Little is known about how geometric cues affect cell function and gene expression in 3D settings. Here the authors use microniches of different geometries to control cell volume and shape, and by extension cell phenotype and lineage.

    • Min Bao
    • , Jing Xie
    •  & Wilhelm T. S. Huck

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quantum-enhanced applications such as quantum spectroscopy of biological samples could take advantage from in situ generation of quantum states of light. Here, the authors characterize polarization-entangled photon states generated through spontaneous four-wave mixing in enhanced green fluorescent proteins.

    • Siyuan Shi
    • , Prem Kumar
    •  & Kim Fook Lee

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Real-world surfaces exhibit spatially varying wettability, which affects water repellency and droplet behaviour on such surfaces. Here, the authors use scanning droplet adhesion microscopy to create wetting maps that visualize variations in wettability with a spatial resolution down to 10 μm.

    • Ville Liimatainen
    • , Maja Vuckovac
    •  & Robin H. A. Ras

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dense connective tissues do not easily heal, in part due to a low supply of reparative cells. Here, the authors develop a fibrous scaffold for meniscal repair that sequentially releases collagenase and a growth factor at the injury site, breaking down the extracellular matrix and recruiting endogenous cells.

    • Feini Qu
    • , Julianne L. Holloway
    •  & Robert L. Mauck

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    Ice crystal growth is a major problem in cell and tissue cryopreservation for transplantation, transfusion, icing of aircraft wings and many other applications. Here the authors review the emerging field of synthetic macromolecular mimics of antifreeze proteins that can be used overcome such problems.

    • Caroline I. Biggs
    • , Trisha L. Bailey
    •  & Matthew I. Gibson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The exterior layers of mollusk shells are prismatic in nature, endowing them with stiffness and wear resistance. Inspired by these biominerals, here, Jiang and colleagues grow structurally similar prismatic-type CaCO3 thin films with comparable stiffness and hardness.

    • Chuanlian Xiao
    • , Ming Li
    •  & Helmut Cölfen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Natural silk fibers are produced using a simple and green approach compared to alternative synthetic methods. Here, the authors show a bioinspired approach to spin regenerated silk fibers using anisotropic liquid crystals and dry spinning, resulting in remarkably robust fibers.

    • Shengjie Ling
    • , Zhao Qin
    •  & Markus J. Buehler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Peptide-based supramolecular assemblies are a promising class of nanomaterials with important biomedical applications, but their antibacterial properties can be overlooked. Here the authors show the antibacterial activity of self-assembled diphenylalanine, which emerges as the minimal model for antibacterial supramolecular polymers.

    • Lee Schnaider
    • , Sayanti Brahmachari
    •  & Ehud Gazit

  • Article
    | Open Access

    New examples of natural antireflective coatings are rare. Here, Yang et al. report the fabrication and optical characterization of a biologically inspired antireflective surface that emulates the surface architecture of the leafhopper-produced brochosomes with antireflective performance from 250 to 2000 nm.

    • Shikuan Yang
    • , Nan Sun
    •  & Tak-Sing Wong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Monomer sequence is an emerging tool to precisely encode information (and thus structure and function) into polymer systems. Here the authors use sequence-control in complex coacervates to understand how monomer sequence translates to physical material properties.

    • Li-Wei Chang
    • , Tyler K. Lytle
    •  & Sarah L. Perry

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The intracellular topology of a nanostructure plays a major role in its interactions with the cell and accordingly, its biological applications. Here, the authors design peptides that intracellularly polymerize into elastin-like polypeptides and assemble into various topologies, each of which exhibits a distinct set of biological functions.

    • Li-Li Li
    • , Sheng-Lin Qiao
    •  & Hao Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Buckling and wrinkling are instabilities which involve thin elastic sheets and are well-investigated phenomena at the macroscale. Here Saikia et al. investigate curvature instabilities at the colloidal lengthscale in quasi-2D monolayers of rod-like viruses across the fluid-crystal phase transition.

    • Lachit Saikia
    • , Tanmoy Sarkar
    •  & Prerna Sharma

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the interaction of nanomaterials and immune cells at the biomolecular level is of great significance in therapeutic applications. Here, the authors investigated the interaction of graphene oxide nanomaterials and several immune cell subpopulations using single-cell mass cytometry and genome-wide transcriptome analysis.

    • Marco Orecchioni
    • , Davide Bedognetti
    •  & Lucia G Delogu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spider-silk-mimicking microfibers often suffer from low efficiency and durability in water collection. Here, the authors fabricate robust microfibers with spindle cavity-knots and different topological fiber-networks with improved water-collecting performance

    • Ye Tian
    • , Pingan Zhu
    •  & Liqiu Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How soft tissues respond to mechanical load is essential to their biological function. Here, the authors discover that – contrary to predictions of poroelasticity – fluid mobility in collagenous tissues induces drastic volume decrease with tensile loading and pronounced chemo-mechanical coupling.

    • Alexander E. Ehret
    • , Kevin Bircher
    •  & Edoardo Mazza

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Velvet worms expel a fluid slime that, under shear force, forms stiff fibres that can be dissolved and then regenerated. Here, the authors reveal that the recyclability of these biopolymers relies on mechanoresponsive lipid-protein nanoglobules in the slime that reversibly self-assemble into fibrils.

    • Alexander Baer
    • , Stephan Schmidt
    •  & Matthew J. Harrington

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Biological polymeric matrices often use molecular anchors, such as antibodies, to trap nanoparticulates. Here, the authors find that anchor-matrix bonds that are weak and short-lived confer superior trapping potency, contrary to the prevailing belief that effective molecular anchors should form strong bonds to both the matrix and the nanoparticulates.

    • Jay Newby
    • , Jennifer L. Schiller
    •  & Samuel K. Lai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The formation mechanism of abundant calcium oxalate biomaterials is unresolved. Here the authors show the early stages of calcium oxalate formation in pure and citrate-bearing solutions by using a titration set-up in conjunction with solution quenching, transmission electron microscopy and analytical ultracentrifugation.

    • Encarnación Ruiz-Agudo
    • , Alejandro Burgos-Cara
    •  & Carlos Rodriguez-Navarro

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