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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2021 Jan 1.
Published in final edited form as: Matrix Biol. 2019 Jun 1;85-86:94–111. doi: 10.1016/j.matbio.2019.05.006

Fig. 4. rBM-alginate IPNs with bio-orthogonal covalent cross-linking exhibit low plasticity and physiologically relevant stiffness.

Fig. 4

a, Approach to forming IPNs of high and low mechanical plasticity using alginate (blue) and reconstituted basement membrane (rBM) matrix (green), without or with sparse covalent cross-links in addition to ionic cross-linking (red). High plasticity (HP) IPNs were formed with low molecular weight alginate, and low plasticity, covalently cross-linked (LP-CC) IPNs were formed using high molecular weight alginate. b, Storage (G’) and loss (G”) moduli by frequency for HP and LP-CC IPNs. c, Young’s modulus and d, loss tangent of these formulations, measured at 1% strain and 0.15 Hz. e, Normalized strain throughout creep and recovery tests on HP and LP-CC IPNs. f, Permanent strain remaining in the IPNs after a recovery time, indicated by the intersecting dashed lines in e. In c, d, and f, bars indicate means and error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals. Differences indicated are significantly different (**** P < 0.0001, Student’s t-test). HP IPN mechanical testing data shown in c-f reprinted with permission from ref. [20].