DNA inserts enhance elasticity of alginate gels

Abstract

Alginate is a highly biocompatible polymer whose applications require mechanical versatility to meet specific requirements. A seemingly straightforward protocol for tuning biopolymer network mechanics is by inserting stiffer materials of known elastic behavior. However, we have found an enhancement in the viscoelastic properties of alginate by embedding soft DNA polymers which furthermore was found to be dependent on the DNA concentration. This demonstrates that the bulk mechanical properties of alginate gels are tunable even without applying active cross-linkers which implies that alginate-DNA composites could be fine-tuned by compounding viscoelastic-enhancement with cross-linker based stiffening.