title: Glucose suppresses biological ferroelectricity in aortic elastin.
abstract: Elastin is an intriguing extracellular matrix protein present in all connective tissues of vertebrates, rendering essential elasticity to connective tissues subjected to repeated physiological stresses. Using piezoresponse force microscopy, we show that the polarity of aortic elastin is switchable by an electrical field, which may be associated with the recently discovered biological ferroelectricity in the aorta. More interestingly, it is discovered that the switching in aortic elastin is largely suppressed by glucose treatment, which appears to freeze the internal asymmetric polar structures of elastin, making it much harder to switch, or suppressing the switching completely. Such loss of ferroelectricity could have important physiological and pathological implications from aging to arteriosclerosis that are closely related to glycation of elastin.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195-2600, USA.
authors.forename: Yuanming
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Yunjie
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Ming-Jay
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Chow
authors.forename: Nataly Q
authors.initials: NQ
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Feiyue
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Yanhang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Jiangyu
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001011:Aorta / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D004549:Elastin / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000502:physiology*; D055590:Electromagnetic Phenomena; D005947:Glucose / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000494:pharmacology*; D018625:Microscopy, Atomic Force / Q000379:methods; D013552:Swine
chemical_list: D004549:Elastin; D005947:Glucose