Well-defined synthetic copolymers with pendant aldehydes form biocompatible strain-stiffening hydrogels and enable competitive ligand displacement

Dynamic hydrogels are attractive platforms for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, due to their ability to mimic key extracellular (ECM) mechanical properties like strain-stiffening and stress relaxation, while enabling enhanced processing characteristics like injectability, 3D printing, and self-healing. Systems based on imine-type dynamic covalent chemistry (DCvC) have become increasingly popular. Yet, most reported polymers comprising aldehyde groups are based either on end-group modified synthetic or side-chain modified natural polymers; synthetic versions of side-chain modified polymers are noticeably absent. To facilitate access to new classes of dynamic hydrogels, we report the straightforward synthesis of a water-soluble copolymer with a tunable fraction of pendant aldehyde groups (12–64%) using controlled radical polymerization, and their formation into hydrogel biomaterials with dynamic crosslinks. We found the polymer synthesis to be well-controlled with the determined reactivity ratios consistent with blocky gradient microarchitecture. Subsequently, we observed fast gelation kinetics with imine-type crosslinking. We were able to vary hydrogel stiffness from ≈ 2–20 kPa, tune the onset of strain-stiffening towards a biologically relevant regime (σc ≈ 10 Pa), and demonstrate cytocompatibility using human dermal fibroblasts. Moreover, to begin to mimic the dynamic biochemical nature of the native ECM, we highlight the potential for temporal modulation of ligands in our system to demonstrate ligand displacement along the copolymer backbone via competitive binding. The combination of highly tunable composition, stiffness, and strain-stiffening, in conjunction with spatiotemporal control of functionality, positions these cytocompatible copolymers as a powerful synthetic platform for the rational design of next-generation synthetic biomaterials.