Figure 1.

Structure and hierarchical assembly of the polyisocyanide (PIC)-based gels as a reductionist model for the ECM. (a) The semiflexible network is composed of bundles of polymer chains with a broad pore size distribution ranging from nanometers to microns. The polymer contour length, L_C, and the density of peptide adhesion sites, given by the average distance d between two adjacent groups, was varied in this work. (b) The molecular structure of the polymer is shown in red, the GRGDS peptide is shown in blue, and the linking group is shown in pink, matching with the colors in panel a. (c) The PIC polymers reversibly gel above the gelation temperature T_gel ∼ 20 °C.