Characterizing and modulating the mechanical properties of hydrogels from ventricular extracellular matrix

In order to differentiate pluripotent stem cells to cardiomyocytes, the most general method is to expose stem cells to various growth factors related to cardiogenesis. However, a novel method has been reported to induce cardiac differentiation of human ES cells without supplemental growth factors by culturing embryoid body of human ES cells in hybrid gels composed of cardiac extracellular matrix (ECM) and type I collagen. On the other hand, mechanical properties of scaffold is one of the critical cue for differentiation of stem cells. However, it has not been thoroughly investigated the mechanical properties of the scaffold made from cardiac ECM in view of this and other reports about the differentiation of stem cells into cardiomyocytes using cardiac ECM scaffold. In this study, we fabricated bio-hydrogels composed of goat ventricular extracellular matrix, and investigated the mechanical properties by means of uniaxial compression test. It showed that the ECM gels possess viscoelastic property. The elastic modulus K1 in modified non-linear Kelvin model is 9.5 Pa for these gels and K2 is 814.7 Pa. Moreover, we were able to improve the elastic moduli K1 and K2 up to 139.7 Pa and 2023.9 Pa, respectively, by chemical treatment using EDAC.