title: Aromatic-aromatic interactions enhance interfiber contacts for enzymatic formation of a spontaneously aligned supramolecular hydrogel.
abstract: Anisotropy or alignment is a critical feature of functional soft materials in living organisms, but it remains a challenge for spontaneously generating anisotropic gel materials. Here we report a molecular design that increases intermolecular aromatic-aromatic interactions of hydrogelators during enzymatic hydrogelation for spontaneously forming an anisotropic hydrogel. This process, relying on both aromatic-aromatic interactions and enzyme catalysis, results in spontaneously aligned supramolecular nanofibers as the matrices of a monodomain hydrogel that exhibits significant birefringence. This work, as the first example of monodomain hydrogels formed via an enzymatic reaction, illustrates a new biomimetic approach for generating aligned anisotropic soft materials.
authors: Department of Chemistry, Brandeis University , 415 South Street, Waltham, Massachusetts 02454, United States.
authors: Jie
authors: J
authors: Zhou
authors: Xuewen
authors: X
authors: Du
authors: Yuan
authors: Y
authors: Gao
authors: Junfeng
authors: J
authors: Shi
authors: Bing
authors: B
authors: Xu
mesh_terms: D000469:Alkaline Phosphatase / Q000737:chemistry*; D016880:Anisotropy; D020100:Hydrogels / Q000138:chemical synthesis*; D046529:Microscopy, Electron, Transmission; D008859:Microscopy, Polarization; D057139:Nanofibers / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D012212:Rheology
chemical_list: D020100:Hydrogels; D000469:Alkaline Phosphatase